Rickamarole
by Kat Aclysm
Summary: Rick don screwed up in dis one broh. Morty is unhappy and stuff. It was meant to be a simple drop-off mission. Things turn south pretty quickly. Rick has to take charge broh - Oh teh noes! (Multichapter Fluff/Familial Love) - This story is now complete!
1. Chapter 1 - Science, Bitch!

**Rickamarole**

Written by Kat_Aclysm

Rated : - T for language. I've downrated this because it doesn't have mature themes in it.

 **DISCLAIMER:** I don't own any of these characters, this is a work of fanfiction. Rick and Morty is an Adult Swim animated comedy. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon.

 **NOTE:** Doesn't fit anywhere particularly in the canon. Just another adventure with some fluff.

* * *

 **Chapter 1 – Science, Bitch!**

It was supposed to be just another quick adventure – get in, get out. Just another weapons drop-off to some dumb little rogue planet within the Gimbaloid-9 Nebula and back again - simple. The instructions had reached him via a heavily encrypted channel on his spaceship console about nine hours ago. Rick had been out collecting more soldering wire and electrical components for the devices he was working on, and he was only too happy to put his current project aside for the paid work.

Rick had been so busy working on the specialist weapons order that he had completely forgotten about dinner. If he had bothered going, he would have noted that Morty wasn't present either – the kid had gone to bed shortly after he had gotten home from school.

It wasn't that Rick wasn't a particularly inattentive person, just incredibly busy. Getting paid thousands of Schmeckles was a huge motivator as well. If he had known the situation prior to flying out, he would have changed his strategy entirely.

It was after midnight when the weapon was finally finished. Rick celebrated this fact with several mouthfuls of scotch from the silver flask he kept in his lab-coat pocket.

He tucked the flask away again and added the finishing touches to the inside of the device. Once the handle and trigger had been connected into position, he aimed the weapon at a garbage can in the corner of in the garage. With a loud burp he squeeze the trigger and fired – the garbage can completely disintegrated with no noise and no trace whatsoever.

Rick grinned from ear to ear, feeling quite pleased with himself. "Woo-hoo, make it rain, baby! Th-this thing's gonn-UUURP make me some bank, yo!" He put his hands in the air and cheered to nobody in particular. After another moment he had disarmed the weapon and placed it into a foam-lined storage case that was waiting nearby. Once he had locked it up properly, he headed towards Morty's bedroom. The kid always seemed to like running errands with him, and the brain-wavelength shielding provided Rick with the perfect excuse to spend time with his grandson.

The hallway was dark as it was the middle of the night, which was to be expected. When Rick reached Morty's bedroom, he gently opened the door and peered inside – Morty was dead to the world and curled up under a few layers of blankets. Rick stared at him and felt a momentarily pang of regret for having to wake the kid up.

 _"No time for your sentimental bullshit, old man."_ Rick thought to himself as he placed a hand on the light switch by the door. _"Gotta get this shit done."_

"H-he-hey, Mo-OURGH-ty," He burped and momentarily fanned the air - that one reeked strongly of scotch. "M-Morty, you got to get up. You gotta come with me."

"Mmm-mmmmph..." Morty groaned in protest, not wanting to be woken from his state of deep sleep. "G-guh... go away..."

Rick sat down on the edge of the bed and placed a hand on Morty's shoulder. "H-hey don't be like that, M-Morty. Come on buddy, wake up." He began to shake him gently. Morty felt warm to the touch, but Rick didn't seem to notice. "We... w-we gotta go on another adventure, M-morty."

"Ffff. Go away..." Morty groaned again and rolled over, his back facing Rick now.

Rick had lost his patience by now. He stood up, grabbed Morty by the leg, and began dragging him toward the doorway. Morty almost lifelessly slid along the bed, though was finally woken up with an abrupt start when his head hit the floor.

"OW, ow oww!" Morty cried out, his hands scrambling to grab at anything to stop himself from being dragged further. "Rick!? Wh-wh-what are you doing!? You're tugging too hard... that hurts! Stop it! Rick!?"

Rick dragged him out into the hallway, then shut the door behind them. He let go of the kid's leg and crouched down next to him in the hallway.

"Morty," He said plainly, "K-keeURP your voice down." He reached into his coat pocket and grabbed his silver flask, taking another quick chug from it. "Look – I need you to come with - I wouldn't be waking you up if it wasn't impor-UGH-tant, right? I just have a quick dropoff to make. Then we can go get some ice-cream afterwards, whatever you want. W-what do you say, buddy?"

"W-what do I say?" Morty sat up, He was bleary-eyed and tired as he glared hard at his grandfather. "Geez, Rick, what can I say? How about running it yourself and letting me go back to bed, huh? It's like, what, four in the morning? I got school in the morning, y-y-y'know. I need sleep."

"We haven't got time for that!" Rick hissed back at him. "Come on, Morty, it'll be fine." He emphasised the last part as he narrowed his eyes.

"Aww come on, Rick," Morty glanced off to the side a he began to shiver in the coldness of the hallway. He was already missing the warmth of his blankets. "I don't feel so good. Can't I j-just go back to bed?"

Rick rolled his eyes and made a loud harumphing sound. The kid was likely telling the truth, but he was incredibly dismissive of it. His tone was gruff and annoyed now. "Don't be a baby, M-Morty. Suck it up. We'll be fine! Ju-ju-justURP get this done, and you can go back to bed. Simple."

Morty lowered his head, defeated. "O-oh alright, Rick... geez. Y-you win again."

"That's the spirit." Rick momentarily ruffled Morty's hair and got to his feet. "C-come on Morty, it'll be good. You'll see. Now, c'mon. Get dressed and meet me in the garage." He walked off down the hallway, smirking to himself that he had his own way yet again.

Morty got to his feet and headed into the bedroom to get dressed. He had a sinking feeling about the situation, and he was upset with himself about how easily persuaded he was. He was tired, he didn't feel well, and he was cold. But he was willing to do whatver Rick said.

He hastily pulled on some pants and a t-shirt before he combed his hair. He considered going back to bed - his stomach hurt and he was really tired, but if he went back to bed now, Rick wouldn't like that at all. He put his shoes on and walked out to the garage.

Rick was already busy loading the ship up with supplies when Morty arrived – several guns and some gadgets were being tossed into the trunk as backup incase the situation went downhill. Morty climbed into the passenger's seat and did up his seatbelt. Rick slammed the trunk shut and climbed into the driver's seat, flying the ship out into the horizon.

Morty said nothing and hugged his stomach, lowering his head as he did so. Rick glanced at this movement, but said nothing and continued driving. He had already pushed the kid into coming on the adventure in the first place, he wasn't ready to upset the kid so soon.

Rick reached into his coat pocket and took a quick sip from his flask. "C-cheer up lil' buddy," He burped loudly. "This won't take long. Th-this'll be aaaaalll over before you know it." He offered Morty a cheesy grin.

Morty did not look at him or respond as he closed his eyes, resting his head against the side of his seat.

All he wanted to do was go back to bed.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	2. Chapter 2 - The Dropoff

**Rickamarole**

Written by Kat_Aclysm

Rated : - T for language.

 **DISCLAIMER:** I don't own any of these characters, this is a work of fanfiction. Rick and Morty is an Adult Swim animated comedy. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon.

 **NOTE:** Dis one turns south broh.

* * *

 **Chapter 2 – The Dropoff**

The ship flew across the galaxy at incredible speed. Morty was only vaguely aware of the soft humming sound of the engine as he curled up in his seat, trying to get as comfortable as he could. Although that was impossible right now - the seat had been reclined back as far as it would go and no matter how he lay across it, his stomach was still giving him grief no matter what position he lied in. He had no idea why he felt so horrible, but it was getting worse and he began to shiver. Morty dared not complain about it however - he remained completely silent in the fear that Rick would berate him for whining about 'trivial' such things. That thought annoyed the 14 year old and he turned over once again, his back facing Rick now.

Meanwhile, Rick attempted to concentrate his attention on the flight path ahead, though if he had to admit it to himself, he was growing increasingly concerned with Morty's current state. Usually the kid was upright and bright-eyed whenever they flew around the galaxy, though right now he was completely inattentive and disinterested. The fact that he was completely silent and shivering only caused Rick to worry further, and he felt a strong overwhelming sense of guilt now that the kid was suffering entirely because of him. It was too late to go back now.

 _"God, how could you be so selfish?"_ Rick glared as he thought to himself. _"He was right you know - you could have done whole thing without him."_

Truth was, Rick didn't want to do anything alone as long as Morty was around. He'd never actually said it, or would ever admit to it – but he loved Morty more than life itself. Having the kid around made him happy. Morty looked up to his grandpa and respected him, that made him feel important. The fact that Morty was usually optimistic was something to be admired, and although his naive optimism was usually something that Rick shot down, he liked that quality in him too. In a strange way, Morty reminded him of himself.

When Morty turned his back to him as he rolled onto his side, Rick finally allowed himself a proper look at the kid.

 _"He's fucking miserable, you idiot. This is all your fault."_ He silently berated himself. _"Sometimes he worries you don't even like him. Do something nice for him later."_

'Nice' wasn't his strong suit. Rick leaned back in his seat and sighed - guilt was not something he wanted to feel right now. With one hand on the wheel, he pulled his silver flask out of his pocket, took a few short sips from it, and then stuffed it back into his pocket. He reached across the console and flicked the heater on for Morty, hoping that it would help him to stop shivering.

It was the least he could do.

Morty woke with a start and a loud yelp as something hit the side of the ship. He rather abruptly sat up when he heard the equally loud metallic scrape on the underside. Morty immediately regretted the action and hugged his gut, seeing hazy spots in his eyes because of the intense pain. When the haziness cleared again, he saw they were parked in the corner of a poorly-lit run down multi-storey parking garage. The lighting overhead was flickering on and off like it was about to short out. There was grafitti and all sorts of weird stains all over the concrete walls nearby - the place looked like it hadn't been maintained in years. However, it was still very much in use as there were several other vehicles were parked nearby.

"Relax, buddy, we just landed. Nothing to worry about." Rick's tone was flat and slightly annoyed – he'd made another terrible landing and wondered if the ship was scratched up. "H-hang tight here for a few moments. Grandpa just has some business to run. This shouldn't take long – listen to the radio or something, I-I dunno whatever it is the crap you kids do. Entertain your-URPP-self."

Rick left the engine running in idle and fiddled with the front console of the ship, tuning in to an alien radio-station – the sound of loud garbled singing sounds and weird music immediately flooded the cabin. He turned the heater up as high as it would go and pulled a handheld video-game device out of his coat pocket.

"H-here. Have fun with this." Rick tossed the device into Morty's lap and shut the door behind him, then walked off to inspect the damage to the ship.

Morty sat up properly in the seat and watched Rick for the next few moments. When he disappeared around the back to open the trunk, Morty shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Mmm..." He made a pitiful weak groan and squeezed his eyes shut again, curling into a ball, hugging his stomach as if it would make the pain go away. He lay there, motionless, trying to stave off the horrid feeling of pain and nausea in his gut. He could hear his heart pounding rapidly in his ears and no matter how high the heater was, he found himself shivering again.

"H-how long is he going to be gone for...? Oh geez..." Morty said aloud to himself. He lay there for what seemed like hours, though in reality Rick was only gone for the best part of ten minutes.

Rick came back to the ship once the transaction was made, feeling quite pleased with himself. He tossed the giant bag of Schmeckles into the trunk – there was easily enough there to buy Morty a car when he was old enough or perhaps college tuition. Though knowing Rick, he was also just as likely to gamble it away, or spend it on booze.

Rick hopped back up in the driver's seat and shut the door, immediately raising an eyebrow at the pathetic sight in the passenger's seat next to him - Morty was doubled over in pain and curled up in a tight ball. The ship's cabin ambient temperature felt like it was on fire in there, yet Morty was still shivering.

"H-hey, uh..." Rick began awkwardly as he placed a hand on his grandson's shoulder. That feeling of guilt had returned with a vengeance. "You OK there, Morty?" He couldn't think of anything more useful to say. He had always been really bad at wording the whole caring thing.

Morty said nothing except for a pitiful whimper in reply. He swallowed hard - he could taste bile in the back of his throat and powerful waves of nausea were now searing through his gut like burning fire.

"It's OK, you know." Rick's voice was calm and quiet. He was scowling at himself again. "We can go home if you want. You're the boss now, I'm done with this miserable hole of a planet."

"Rick, I-" Morty never finished his sentence - his stomach gave a sudden heave to make sure of that. He sat bolt upright and hurriedly opened the door, then bent over the side of the vehicle.

Morty crouched over the side of the ship and he began to violently throw up the contents of his stomach. He remained like that for the best part of five minutes, not being able to do much else except stay there in a pathetic leaned-over position while he continued to loudly retch and regurgitate the remains of whatever was in his stomach.

Rick just stared at him throughout the process, mentally berating himself. " _Yeeeep, he wasn't lying. Great job dummy, now you got a sick kid on your hands. You should have never brought him here."_ He folded his arms and scowled off to the side, frustrated. If he had only left Morty at home, his mother would be taking care of him now, or something like that.

After Morty was done, he slumped forward lifelessly – his bout of vomiting seemed to have sapped all the energy from him and the pain had been so intense he had passed out.

"Whoa!" Rick sprang forwards and promptly grabbed Morty by the arm before he fell out of the vehicle, pulling him back into the seat. "Huh, that's weird. Wonder what made him so sick." His curiosity was getting the better of him now, so he then peered out the other side of the vehicle, wondering what had made Morty so sick.

His next observation made his heart skip a beat - the vomit on the ground had streaks of blood in it.

"No..." Rick hissed at himself. "Shit! Shit, shit, shit, SHIT!" He hastily stretched across the cabin to slam Morty's door. "Damn it!" He slammed a fist against the steering wheel as his mind raced through the options in his next plan of action. _"Vomit never needs to have blood in it... vomit NEVER needs to have blood in it. You're a fucking idiot!"_

He pressed several buttons on the console and a small computer screen on tiny hydraulic mechanisms glided out of the middle. He immediately switched it to voice-activation mode.

"Computer," He growled at it as he flicked several other buttons while he spoke, causing the ship to take off. "Where's the nearest hospital NOT under the jurisdiction of the Galactic Federation?" He stood on the accelerator, pushing it to the floor as the ship rocketed off into the atmosphere. In no time at all the ship was back in space.

"Working." The computer replied in a monotone voice. After another moment, it flashed up with several purple dots. They shimmered across the screen. "17 known hospitals found."

"Great," Rick hissed back at it. "How many of those actually know what a human is? I'm not trusting s-so-some dumb ignorant asshole alien with my grands-UURP-on if they don't even know what he is."

"Working." The computer replied again. "3 known hospitals found. Displaying co-ordinates now."

Rick reached out and tapped the nearest one. He stomped on the accelerator again, although he had already pushed it to the floor during takeoff. He was was a mixture of anxious and worried, and incredibly angry at himself. Outwardly though, he kept calm, sans for the deep scowl on his face.

Meanwhile, Morty was slowly coming back to. He made an uncomfortable groan and slowly curled up once again.

"Hang in there, buddy." Rick's own voice betrayed him – no matter how cold he tried to sound, concern etched the edge of his tone. "We're gonna fix this. You'll be fine." He knew full-well he was saying it more for his own benefit than for Morty's.

Morty said nothing in reply, though he was entirely unconvinced.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	3. Chapter 3 – My GPS Sucks

**Rickamarole**

Written by Kat_Aclysm

Rated : - T for language.

 **DISCLAIMER:** I still don't own any of these characters. Dis right here be fanfiction broh. Rick and Morty is an Adult Swim animated comedy. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. Please consider supporting the official content.

 **NOTE:** Rick nearly loses his shit in dis one broh. Sorry for the ninja-delete and re-upload of Ch-3, I'd left out some important character observation details and I needed to pop them in the end of this chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 3 – My GPS Sucks**

 _Thump. Thump thump._

 _Thump._

 _THUMP._

Rick was repeatedly stomping on the accelerator in his impatience. It was all he could to do to keep himself from exploding in a wild fit of rage. He glared at the ship's positioning system display – it's silent shimmering purple screen told him exactly how far away he was from his destination, but it certainly wasn't doing anything to put his mind at ease. He adjusted the driver's seat if just to diffuse his mood and set his brow in a deep scowl as he focused on the way ahead.

Meanwhile, Morty lay in the seat next to him, more aware of his surroundings now. Although the loud metallic thumping sound that echoed throughout the cabin was annoying, he could understand Rick's impatience and felt really bad for it. This was all his fault, after all.

Nothing was being said between them at all and although his stomach felt terrible, he wasn't sure what was worse – the pain or the silence. It took him a great amount of effort to move again though he slowly managed it through the pain. He turned onto his left side so he was facing Rick.

"H-h... hey..." Morty finally said, looking up at him with tired bleary eyes. His voice was weak and hoarse. "Wh-where... a-are we going?"

Rick cast him a momentary sideways glance, returning his attention ahead again. "I thought that was obvious, Morty." His reply was harsh and annoyed. "H-hospital. Duh. I have n-no idea what this place is going to be li-URPke, but it's not like we really have a choice right now."

"C-cant... c-can't y-yo-you just portal home?" Morty began to slowly push himself up in the seat using his elbow. "Nnngggh..." He squeezed his eyes shut as moving caused fresh hot waves of pain to sear through his gut.

"Don't move, Morty." Rick told him – it was more of a command than an instruction. He took a hand off the wheel to take a quick sip from his silver flask and stashed it back in his coat. "And NO," He glared at him. "W-we're in the middle of space, Morty! We can't j-j-je-just dump the spacee-UUUUGHship on some dumb planet and hope for the best. Iiii-it isn't like parking your car you know. Do you have any idea how valuable this ship is?"

Morty merely replied with another pained groan as he hugged his stomach and sank back into the seat.

That wasn't the reply he wanted to hear. "Y-you doing OK down there, Morty?" Rick gave Morty a more serious looking over, his eyebrows raised.

"I-I'm OK..." Morty lied. Being dismissive was the kind of response he thought Rick wanted to hear.

"If you say so." Rick clenched his left fist and whacked the console beside him, opening up the glove compartment. He reached in, grabbed a plastic sick-bag and tossed it onto Morty's lap. "Here, use this. I-I don't wanna clean up your puke." He slammed the compartment shut again.

The journey continued in relative silence. Morty was sick again - twice. The second time he hadn't sat up in time and threw up on himself. It was mostly liquid and it had gone everywhere, including on the seat and on the floor. The most frequent bout of vomiting had been even more worrisome than the last couple of times – the blood in his vomit was much more noticeable than it had been before, and now the whole cabin reeked of vomit with a faint sanguine stench.

Morty was visibly crying now – partly because the presence of blood in his vomit scared him, partly because he felt so horrible, but mostly out of embarrassment. He hadn't meant for that to happen and he was worried that Rick would get angry at him for being so careless.

However, Rick said absolutely nothing about it. In truth he was just relieved that Morty hadn't passed out again. He forced the ship to speed along at it's absolute limit - the entire body of the vehicle creaked in protest at the forces being applied to it now. Rick didn't care however – he would break the damn thing if he had to. His sole purpose was to get Morty the urgent medical attention he needed as soon as possible.

The journey continued in silence and before too long, Morty had cried himself to sleep. When the sun of the planetary system they were heading to came into view, Rick seemed incredibly pleased with himself. They had no way of telling time in the ship, but it felt like a couple more hours had passed before the ship's on-board computer had began talking again. It was a very welcome sound to say the least.

"In 5 light minutes... make a slow descent into the atmosphere of Blarghh-Aarrrghgrarr. Turn right here." The robotic voice droned the instructions and the screen demonstrated the flight route that needed to be taken. A large continent flashed across the screen, and then it zoomed in. A landing spot flashed on the screen shortly afterwards. "Descend here and turn left onto 1412 Blargrarrrharrrharrgraaahhh Avenue. On the right - you will have reached your destination."

"Fuck yeah, motherfucker!" Rick called out as he threw his hands in the air, unable to contain his happiness. "About fucking time, computer! Do you want us to die out here?"

He immediately regretted the outburst – Morty woke up with a start and threw up again on the seat he was lying on. His condition had deteriorated further during the flight and he was too weak to lift his head this time. Rick was just relieved he had been lying on his side so he didn't choke on it.

He landed the ship with a very abrupt thud and gritted his teeth as he heard the metallic scraping sound made by the chassis as it scuffed along the ground – he'd landed the ship too quickly and it scraped across the road into the open parking space right outside the hospital. _"Oooh, that one's gonna leave a mark..."_ He cringed momentarily at the thought of how to fix it, but it was quickly forgotten – Morty was his priority right now.

When the ship had finally been parked, Rick practically sprang out of the driver's seat. He slammed his door and hastily moved to the other side of the ship. In one swift movement he had the passenger's door open and scooped Morty up in his arms (he was a lot heavier than he remembered), only to kick the door shut again with his foot.

"It's gonna be OK, Morty... we'll fix this. You'll be fine, OK buddy?" He hissed at his grandson as he hastily ran up the hospital steps. Morty was floppy and completely unresponsive in his arms now. He also felt like he was on fire. "Don't die on me, you little bastard..."

Rick kicked open the hospital doors. Fortunately for him, the emergency waiting room was just inside - just perfect for making a dramatic entrance.

"Alright - listen up motherfuckers!" He yelled with every fibre of his being, spit flying across the room. "Which one of you assholes is going to help us over here?!"

Three of the nearby hospital staff immediately reacted to his yelling and came across the room towards the pair. They were all of the same species - very tall dusty-brown creatures with reptilian features and scales scattered intermittently across their bodies. They all had two slitted golden-coloured eyes and three large elongated segmented feelers grew from the tops of their heads which seemed to twitch with every thought they processed.

One of them made a few short guttural clicking sounds in the back of it's throat and carefully took Morty from Rick's arms, while another yanked out the stethoscope that was hanging off it's neck (at least, that's what Rick assumed it was) and began gently placing it all over Morty's body – it paid particular attention to his stomach and neck and doubled-checked those areas. It made another couple of quick noises and then began to squeak and chirp in hurried tones at it's fellow staff members – it was very clearly concerned.

Rick could only stand there and watch them squeak and gargle at each other, not being able to understand a word of it. Though, he didn't really need to – he already knew how dire the situation was.

The third reptilian creature turned to Rick and placed a scaly paw on his shoulder, making a few short hisses before speaking in very broken English. "You... you human. Wait yourself here."

After it spoke, it immediately resumed chirping and burring at it's companions. It ran ahead and shoved the doors open to a nearby treatment room, the other two hurriedly following behind them.

And just like that, they were gone. The ER was quiet again.

Rick practically sank into one of the nearby waiting-room chairs, staring ahead at the doors they had taken his grandson through. Relieved of his worry, the gravity of the situation finally began to hit him like a ton of bricks. His heart felt very heavy and he was incredibly worried about his grandson. He felt utterly terrible and there was practically nothing he could do about it right now. All he could do was wait. He could only guess how long he would be there for.

 _"If that kid dies on you, it's going to be all your fault, old man."_

Rick sat up properly only for another moment – he took his hip flask out of his top coat pocket and took a sip before he tipped it up and drained the contents of the entire thing. He dropped the flask onto the seat next to him, the discoloured stain on the sleeve of his lab-coat capturing his attention - it was stained with patches of bilious yellow and red.

 _"Blood..."_

The rest of his lab-coat hadn't fared much better – the lapels and chest-area of his coat were also stained with the same red-yellow bloody vomit from where he had held onto his grandson. He hadn't even noticed it before.

With a heavy sigh, Rick crouched down in the seat once again, placing his head in his hands. Stinging hot tears prickled his eyes, but he held them back.

This was the last place he wanted to lose it.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	4. Chapter 4 – Waiting Rooms Suck Too

**Rickamarole**

Written by Kat_Aclysm

Rated : - T for language.

 **DISCLAIMER:** As stated in previous chapters, I don't own any of these characters. Dis be fanfiction broh. Rick and Morty is an Adult Swim animated space comedy thing created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. Support the official content, it's an awesome show.

 **NOTE:** Slightly shorter chapter this time, but it was a good place to put an act ending. The story is going to end up longer than intended, but it's really enjoyable to write and so you may see a few more of these fluff/multichapter-familial love stories from me. Yay!

* * *

 **Chapter 4 – Waiting Rooms Suck Too**

There were soft clicking and burring noises somewhere overhead.

He ignored them.

"F-fuck off..." He mumbled in reply.

Rick Sanchez was currently utterly dead to the world and snoring his head off. He had been awake far too long before the incident with Morty already and so he was only too happy to succumb to sleep when he was drunk enough. He was uncomfortably splayed out across the chair he had been sleeping in for the unknown hours that followed Morty's departure into the bowels of the hospital. He was also drooling on himself – pretty normal for him.

Meanwhile, the reptilian creatures that had come to give the strange little human some news about his grandson were standing directly in front of him now, trying to work out how to wake up this odd grumpy creature that they hadn't had much to do with before. One of the reptilian creatures stared hard at the grumpy old man and made wet bubbly gargling noises before poking him in the shoulder, the other one made a sharp chirping sound and began prodding at his other shoulder.

Rick awoke with a sudden start, balled his hands into fists and swung them around himself violently. "I said fuck off!" He forcefully opened his eyes and blearily looked around – he only relaxed again he remembered where he was. He saw the alien creatures step back from him and sat up in the chair. "O-oh great, it's you guys." He flattened his brow, trying to look as unimpressed as possible. "What do you want?"

The larger reptilian made a loud agitated burring sound. ""The juvenile male homo sapiens you brought in earlier is doing fine, sir." The three segmented feelers on-top of his head began to wiggle and twitch excitedly. "It was... most interesting."

"Great," Rick sat up in his chair and adjusted his lab-coat collar. "What was wrong with Morty?" He reached across to pick up his flask, vaguely disappointed when he remembered that he had already emptied it earlier. _"That's not good..."_ He made a quick mental note to fill it up again at the earliest convenience – he never really liked it to stay empty for long. God, he wanted another drink right now.

"Your... Morty had. Infection. Perforation." The reptilian creature clicked at him in reply, seeming to struggle with the translation to English. It clutched the edges of it's clipboard and began to flip through the pages attached to it. "We Fleeganites are not wholly unfamiliar with this form of sickness, but it is not seen often. We did not evolve from deutorostomes like your species has."

Rick raised a brow, genuinely confused. He knew what they were talking about, but somehow they still weren't making sense. Their use of language was fast becoming incredibly annoying. He snatched the clipboard away from the creature, figuring he would better understand the information than having to put up with listening them any further.

The reptilian creature stepped back further, hissing at him in it's anger, it's scales flared up. "That is a confidential document."

"I don't really give a shit what it is." Rick replied rather bluntly as he began to flip through the pages. "S-shut up and let me read it."

To his surprise, the reptilian creature backed down and let him continue.

Several diagrams had been drawn across the papers – most of them were accompanied with foreign scrawl and numbers that Rick couldn't read. Most of the diagrams drawn focused on various organs and systems of the human body. There was a quick sketch of a heart with no footnotes on it. He flipped another page and saw a crudely drawn diagram of the human digestive system. There were several red markers and circles in the region of the large intestine. There was a big red circle around the lower right side and a big red X had been drawn through the appendix.

"Appendicitis?" Rick hissed, his anger rising. His mind was racing now, the whole thing seemed like a giant waste of time – he wasn't a doctor, but even he knew how stupidly simple it was to fix appendicitis under normal circumstances. Of all the things to get in the multiverse, it had to be mundane and simple - he was angry with himself for not guessing it. Anything else would have been worth flying halfway across a galaxy for. Hell, even space-AIDS would have been more diagnostically interesting than this...

"Peritonitis." The reptilian hissed back as he corrected Rick and snatched the clipboard away again. "The appendix burst. Causing perforation. This is a life threatening condition." It paused, making a soft clicking noise as it communicated to it's work partner. "You got your... Morty here in time. If this had continued for longer, the adolescent human male would have died. Infection. Bleed out. Death."

Rick sank back in his chair, his eyes widening, suddenly kicking himself for being angry - the alien had spelled it out rather plainly and he was right. "Wow, huh." He said simply, his mind racing with possibilities and different scenarios of how differently things could have turned out.

 _"If only you'd left the kid at home..."_

This whole ordeal would have been much easier to deal with it he had just listened to what Morty had to say in the first place. Though, Rick gritted his teeth at the thought of Jerry trying to manage it – he doubted Jerry's ability to be intelligent enough to see it as anything more than a stomach virus. Maybe Beth would have known what it was...

"Fortunately for you," The alien clicked at Rick, snapping him out of his thought process. It's feelers were raised high over it's head now. "He will be just fine – the adolescent human is in recovery now. You can see him whenever you wish - the room is 515-G." It tore a small paper stub off the bottom page of the clipboard and held it out for him to take. " Take this to accounting. Bob will take your payment."

Rick snatched the piece of paper and stood up. "Your planet is called Blargh-fucking-whateversomething a-an-and you have a guy in accounting named 'Bob'? What the fuck is wrong with your stupid planet?!"

The reptilian creature completely ignored him and walked off, mumbling to itself in grumpy clicks and chirrups.

Rick wasted no time finding the right room. He opened the door and quietly let himself inside – the overhead light was off and the room was only lit by dim floor lights, as well as the small armada of medical equipment that was beeping around the room, monitoring Morty's vital signs. Everything one would want to know about their patient and more was hooked up to the bed, monitoring the sleeping kid - one device was measuring oxygen saturation in his blood while another measured heart-rate, body temperature and respiration. There were other things on the monitors around the room showing things like brainwave activity, hydration, hunger and oddly enough, pain being experienced.

Rick was vaguely impressed with the collection of monitors and vaguely wondered how the machines were picking up some of the readings. He considered raiding the place so he could pull the machines apart, but not until after they were done here. It would just be inconsiderate to steal from the hospital while his grandson was being taken care of there. Besides, he didn't want to get Morty kicked out until he was better.

Rick found the visitor's chair and sat down. It was much more comfortable and cushioned than the one in the waiting-room. A small switch was found on the armrest and he made the chair recline as far back as it would go – it was actually good enough to sleep in if he had wanted to do so.

Morty was still completely out of it – he was still under the effects of anesthesia from his operation. Rick couldn't help but smirk slightly at the sight beside him – he had to admit the kid looked almost comical in the oversized bed. It was obviously designed to hold organisms much larger than humans.

 _"At least he looks comfortable."_ Rick thought to himself as he glanced up at the monitor that was measuring pain management. The reading jumped occasionally, but mostly remained at baseline. _"At least one of us is."_

It just occurred to Rick that it had probably been several hours since he last had a proper alcoholic drink - a rather noticeable stinging headache was beginning to develop behind his eyes. He didn't particularly want to wait and see what would happen if he let withdrawal symptoms set in further. He slid out of the chair again and stood up.

"H... h-ha-hang out here for a while, Morty." Rick mumbled aloud to the sleeping kid. He knew very well that Morty wouldn't respond right now, but it still felt normal to keep talking to him. "I-I got stuff to do." He pulled a piece of paper out of his coat pocket and scribbled up a short note before he tossed it onto the bed beside Morty's right arm. He knew the kid was smart enough to find it when he woke up again.

Rick said nothing more as he pulled the portal gun out of his top left coat pocket and aimed it at the nearest wall. Luminous bright green swirling light exploded against the wall as the portal formed. It was a welcome sight.

 _"I'll be back before you wake up, buddy. I'm sorry I got you into this mess. At least you're gonna be OK."_ He cast a regretful glance in Morty's direction and stepped through the open portal, disappearing.

The room went dark again. It was as if he had never been in there.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	5. Chapter 5 - Heartfelt

**Rickamarole**

Written by Kat_Aclysm

Rated : - T for language.

 **DISCLAIMER:** Read the disclaimer from earlier chapters. I don't own these characters, this is a work of fanfiction. Support the official release. Buy the DVDs/BluRay discs. If you support the official content, Adult Swim will keep paying for more seasons. Rick and Morty for a hundred years!

 **NOTE:** This chapter is huge. Covered most of what I needed to in this one. Will probably tie it up soon.

* * *

 **Chapter 5 – Heartfelt**

Awareness was being an unforgiving bitch right now.

Morty made a soft pathetic groan of pain as his mind battled through the fog of anesthesia and return him to the land of consciousness. He was vaguely aware of a dull throbbing pain in his lower stomach area and a very dry throat – a drink of water would be really nice right about now. All Morty really wanted to do was open his eyes and sit up, but his body just wouldn't respond for him right now.

So many sounds all around him. There was the sound of rain outside his window, which was currently shut with the shades drawn up tightly so he would have no idea what time it was anyway, even if he could open his eyes.

Mechanical beeping noises reverberated off the walls around the room. A low constant thrumming noise was somewhere overhead. It was all incredibly annoying and too loud, yet he could do nothing about it for the time being. All he could work out right now that he was obviously lying in a hospital bed and that his body was wrapped up in a thick blanket. However, he knew no other detail right now and that was the thing that was worrying him the most. If only he could shut up some of the noises... at least he was warm.

"Mmmph..." He groaned again - it was louder this time. Morty was already becoming increasingly frustrated as more time passed and he wrinkled his brow, wishing his body would just respond for him. He felt the mattress move and depress as somebody sat down next to him on the bed. It was accompanied by the unmistakable scent of whiskey and freshly laundered clothing.

 _"At least Rick actually bothered to take a shower..."_ Morty thought to himself.

He felt the hand ruffle through his hair and didn't mind it – Rick was one of the few people he allowed to do that to him. His grandfather's touch was very gentle, his hand warm and soothing. Morty felt calmed, placated by it.

"H-hey. Hey buddy. Take it easy." Rick's voice was close, gentle and encouraging, which Morty thought was strange and very much unlike him in normal circumstances. Then again, these were hardly normal circumstances right now...

"A-are youUURRP in much pain?" Rick continued to talk overhead. "Some of these scanners are pretty cool, but they're not making much sense – this readout over here, i-i-it's complete bullshit."

Morty cringed – the more his grandpa talked, the more he could smell the alcohol on his breath. He couldn't work out if that was normal, or if he'd been drinking more than usual.

Rick hopped off the edge of the bed and moved around the room - now that Morty was in the process of waking up, the monitoring equipment readouts had gotten far more interesting and he was curious about them all. The brainwave patterns he recognized ('Morty waves', he liked to call them), but the pain monitor had become far more active and showed several sharp spikes since the kid had woken up.

"Stay down, Morty. Don't try to move right now." Rick instructed him. "Do you want me to go get somebody to cut that pain down for you? Maybe we can share, huh? Wubba lubba dub dub!"

Morty made another soft groan of protest – Rick was being far too loud for his liking. He fought through the clouded haze and slowly forced his eyes open, only to immediately wish that he hadn't – the light was so strong it felt like he had just been punched straight in the retinas.

"S-s-suh... so bright..." He finally managed to mumble out. He sounded very weak, his throat was dry and hoarse. "T-turn off the light..."

"You got it, buddy." Rick rose to his feet and began to fumble around the room, looking for the switches to the overhead lights. "Now, where the fu-URRRGGck is it?"

Morty heard a deafening crash moments later and screwed his face up in protest. Rick had tripped over the hospital bed tray and the clattering sound was almost deafening.

"Whoops!" Rick got to his feet again and shoved the tray off to the side. "Didn't see that the-UUUPRPre, s-s-some dumb... s-some stupid careless idiot must have left it in the way." He flicked off the light on the wall near the door, and the room was as dark as it had been when he'd come in the first time.

One of the monitors that was hooked up to Morty began to beep loudly, which attracted the attention of one of the reptilian-creature attendants working nearby. It lazily sauntered into the room and and began to fumble around in the drawers near the bedside. It seemed to know what it was doing because it found what it was looking for within the moment. It made three short clicking noises as it dropped three small electric-blue phials as well as a rather large device onto the bed – the contraption looked halfway between a shotgun and a syringe. A very long intimidating needle extended from the nozzle at the end.

"W-what the fuck is that? The hell are you doing to my grandson?!" Rick raised his voice, almost yelling the words as he took two steps forward towards the other, suddenly feeling very protective. He balled his hands into fists and raised them in front of him, ready to take the other out if need-be. He realized the gesture was aggressive and a stupid move (there were likely hundreds more of them in the building), but he cared way too much about the kid to let anything bad happen now.

The creature merely gave the old man a momentary glance, then went right back to what it was doing. It loaded all three phials into the device, and, after clicking them into position, it injected the syringe-end straight into into Morty's left leg, aiming for his femoral artery. Once located, it pulled the trigger on the device to dispense the contents straight into Morty's bloodstream.

The pain monitor immediately stopped beeping.

"Fair enough." Rick grunted simply as he backed down, his arms returning to his sides. He felt a little bit silly and took an awkward sip from his hip flask to diffuse the tension.

The reptilian made a loud hissing sound at Rick, it's scales flared out as it retrieved Morty's medical records from the pigeonhole at the foot of the bed. It made some short notes on the paper and tossed them back into place, before it stepped past Rick and headed out again, closing the door behind it.

"W-wh... what the hell, Rick...?" The effects of the injection were already being felt – the pain he felt in his stomach was beginning to fade and the clouded sluggish haze he had been in was lifting. He opened his eyes again and stared up at his grandfather, a mix of annoyed and confused. "Wh-what... what was that all about?"

"The hell you think I know, Morty?" Rick growled as he emphasized his grandson's name with vitriol. "Iii-it looked like he had a gun to me. I-I know about as much as y-you right now - the ship picked this place out of convenience, nothing more. I've never been here beforURRRP." He moved back to the bedside. "H-hurry up and get better so we can leave."

"You know, y-you're... you're... y-you're being a real jerk right now, R-Rick." Morty's voice was still weak and dry, but he was sure to make his frustration known. He propped himself up on his elbows and began the slow struggle to sit up. "W-why don't you... you... use the portal gun, y-ou can come and go any time y—UNNGHHH!" He tensed up with a sharp spasm of pain.

"Morty!" Rick promptly moved over his grandson and placed his hands on the kid's shoulders, holding him down. "Don't sit up so soon, you'll hurt yourself. Y-y-you gotta lie down until you feel better. Take it easy. Don't try to do everything at once." His voice was firm and authoritative, yet calmer than he had been a mere moment ago.

Morty felt his eyes prickling with hot tears. "Y-yeah? T-take it easy, should I? Well... wh-why don't you?" He glared back at the other as the tears ran down his face.

Rick stared at Morty for a moment when he noticed he was crying. His mouth twisted uncomfortably in his guilt. "Y-yeah, OK. You're right." He felt terrible – he hadn't meant to make his grandson angry. He certainly hadn't meant to make him cry either. He sat down on the edge of the hospital bed and turned away, staring at the door. He took another long swig from his hip flask, though it wasn't doing much to numb him right now.

Morty watched Rick silently, suddenly feeling terrible. He sniffled loudly, his mood did nothing other than to make the crying worse. In most cases, his grandfather's normal reaction when he stood up for himself was more anger, but he saw none of that right now. He almost seemed... defeated. It was weird – he didn't see the older man like this very often. All he wanted to do was give his grandfather a big hug, but he doubted that Rick would take it very well.

After a long uncomfortable silence, Rick began to idly play with Morty's bed-covers, running his fingers along the fabric if just for something to do. His brows were furrowed in deep thought, and he wondered what kind of strange fiber the bed covers were made out of.

"It's OK, R-Rick." Morty said finally, sniffling. "Y-you don't have to know everything. I know everyone expects you to... Mom, Dad, Summer... me. We... w-we ask you dumb questions all the time. It must get tiring after a while. I'm sorry, Rick." He moved his arm up so he could wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his hospital gown.

"N-no, Morty. Don't worry about it." Rick dismissively waved a hand and turned back to face him. He was a mixture of tired and unhappy, and he was still feeling bad for making Morty upset. "You're... you're the last person t-that needs to apologize for asking me shit."

Morty reached his right hand out towards him, but because the bed was so big he didn't reach. Rick noticed the gesture and moved off the bed entirely. He stood up and faced the door, placing his hands into his coat pockets. Morty felt fresh tears in his eyes but quickly blinked them back. He loved his grandfather so much, but right now he was being impossible.

Rick stared at the door, half-debating walking out and giving Morty some time to himself. He was really good at making Morty unhappy, and he began to wonder if the kid would be better off recovering without him around. He took another long sip from his hip flask and shook it slightly – it was already half-empty. He made a mental note to top it back up later on.

"S-so..." Morty attempted another line of conversation, hating the awkward silence between them. "W-what was wrong with me? And how long do we have to wait until I c-ca-can go home?" He wanted to know the answer, but more than anything he just wanted to hear Rick talk again - anything was better than seeing him like this.

Rick seemed to be thankful for the question. He moved across to the foot of Morty's bed and grabbed up the patient file papers that the reptilian attendant had placed there earlier.

"I-I don't know how long they'll keep you-URRRP here. Could be a couple of days, maybe a week. Th-these guys don't seem too eager to cut corners, Morty. W-we... we lucked out on this one." He began to flip through the pages, reading through Morty's health charts. "Much better than the hospital system back home. Bunch of assholes... y-you.. you get a liver-transplant and you need to sell your house. What kind of bullshit is that, Morty?"

Morty looked at one side of his bed, and then the other. He wanted to raise the bed up so he could sit up a little but he didn't know where the controls were. Rick seemed to take notice and moved back to Morty's bedside, immediately finding the remote for him. He stuffed it into the kid's hands.

"So what was wrong with me?" Morty asked again, seeming pleased to have the remote. The controls were pretty straightforward and he worked them out instantly. "It felt pretty horrible... worse than anything else in my life. I felt like I was going to die." He couldn't help but grin as the back of the bed raised, moving him into a comfortable propped-up position. He had been getting sick of lying down.

"Y-yeah... about that," Rick grunted uncomfortably as he began to wonder how much detail he should be going into. "Y-your appendix was infected. Reeaa-UUURP-lly badly infected. Which causes severe pain, vomiting and fever. Sometime after that, your appendix burst. That causes bleeding and infection. It explains everything, Morty. It was all... it was all spelled out. I didn't know what it was at the time, but it was completely obvious, Mo-UUURGHHty."

"Aww geez..." Morty was staring at him unhappily. "Y-you... you can't know everything. Hindsight is 20-20, r-right?"

"C-check this out." Rick moved back to the side of the bed and sat down next to Morty once again. He kicked off his shoes and lay down in the spare space on the bed next to his grandson. The machines above beeped loudly in protest to the second organism on the bed, but quickly stabilized again. One monitor now showed two heartbeats, the brainwave monitor showing two brainwave patterns in perfect opposite synchronization.

"Ahh. Hey, this bed is actually comfortable. You could get used to this. Anyway, see this?" Rick placed the stack of papers in his lap so Morty could get a better look and began to point out places on the anatomy diagrams that the reptilian aliens had drawn earlier.

"When your appendix burst, it caused a perforation here." He tapped on the page, pointing out the exact point on the diagram. "W-when that happens, your shit literally leaks out of your intestines. It's pretty grue-URRRPsome stuff." He flipped a couple more pages. "But they fixed it. You'll have some stitches on your l-lower right side, below your belly button." He tapped a finger on the diagram again, lower this time. "R-right here. That's why you need to stay in bed for a while longer until you heal – i-i... if you move too soon, you'll rip them out."

Morty seemed quite interested as Rick pointed out the diagrams. He watched the other hesitantly, before he leaned in to rest his head on Rick's shoulder. He felt his grandfather tense up momentarily before he relaxed again.

"It's OK, Rick..." Morty placed a hand on Rick's right arm in attempt to calm him. "I'm not gonna do that..." He yawned sleepily – he was already feeling tired again.

Rick's eyes widened visibly – after all he had put the kid through, he still wanted to be affectionate? He lowered his head, feeling angry with himself and guilty all over again. He'd put Morty through so much over their adventures together - he'd lied to him, taken advantage of him for profit, yelled at him, abused him, made fun of his core values and beliefs several times over. Hell, they'd nearly gotten killed several times. And yet, Morty was still willing to run after him where needed, happily follow him and be loyal? Somehow, through it all, the kid still somehow adored him. He couldn't understand it.

"I.. I k-know you're not going to do that..." Rick's voice was quiet now. "You're... you're a good kid, Morty... you're smart. D-don't let anyone tell you otherwise." He averted his attention off to the side, finding it hard to even look at him now. "You were pretty lucky this time. You were in pretty bad shape." He sat up properly, leaning forwards. "If you had gone on like that for much longer, I would have... I..." His shoulders tensed and he buried his face in his hands – there was no way he could finish that sentence. Somewhere beside him, he heard the papers fluttering to the floor.

"Rick." Morty said suddenly, feeling a sudden twinge of sympathy. He sat up and placed a hand on his grandfather's shoulder. "It's OK." It still hurt him to move, but he didn't care. Not right now, anyway.

Rick's shoulders tensed as he made a single pathetic sound. As desperate as he was not to show weakness in front of Morty, he was aware of the fact that he was losing what little composure he was still holding onto.

"It's OK, Rick." Morty said again. This time he pushed himself out of bed and moved in to give Rick a proper hug around the torso. "I'm not going anywhere."

Rick made another soft miserable sound as he shuddered, and finally gave in – the whimpering gave way to proper sobs of grief. Morty just squeezed as hard as he could as he continued to hug the other, patting his back after another moment had passed. He already knew there was a LOT more to this than just the last 24 hours or so. He could only wager a guess at the years of hell his grandfather had buried in his mind only to cloud up with alcohol and trying 'not to think about it'. There was nothing he could say, and nothing he could do would ever make it better. So he did the only thing he could think of – he held him tightly, offering comfort without saying anything at all.

It seemed to work – after several more moments, Rick seemed to calm down again. He rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands and then silently slid off the bed, moving to his feet again. He bent down to pick up the papers, shuffling them into the rough order they had been in before.

"Rick..." Morty lowered his head as his grandfather moved away. Was he going to just forget that had happened? Was he going to brush it off? He didn't have a clue what to do about it, but ignoring it again was the worst idea possible. He attempted probing the other – if he could get him to talk about it, maybe it would help.

"It's OK, Rick, r-r-really. I... I get it."

Rick just stood there in the empty space between the bed and the door. He couldn't bear to turn around again - he didn't want to lose it again. He didn't want to appear weaker than he already felt right now.

Morty spoke up again. "You're not a rock. You're not a dumb... dumb... you're not a dumb invincible rock, Rick. Real life's a bit more complicated than that... we all get sad – sometimes we cry about it. Hell, I know I do." He sniffled. "Sometimes... s-sometimes we make mistakes. We all have limitations and sometimes w-we... we fail." His voice was getting louder now. "You know what your problem is, Rick? You pass everything off like it's nothing. But you don't have to. You act like you don't care, but you really do."

"Oh god..." Rick responded, his voice faltering. He kept his arms to his sides, his body rigid. _"Don't lose it again, don't lose it again..."_ He mentally berated himself.

"I screw up WAY more than you do, Rick – you remind me about that... Every. Single. Day." Morty's voice was harsh as he made a point of emphasizing each word. "I've fucked up more times than I can count." The kid clutched at the edges of his blanket, wringing it in his hands - it was all he could do to keep his mind focused.

"But you know what the best thing about you is, Rick?" Morty continued, sitting up properly. "You know why I keep following you on your dumb... dumb dangerous adventures? I-i-it's because you don't give up. You keep pushing on, despite how shitty everything is. And you actually... y-you actually give a damn about me." He was practically yelling now. "I don't CARE how much you shove me around, how much you call me stupid, how you tell me off all the time. Because underneath all of that, you don't actually believe what you're saying - you care about me. And I love you. So don't go away again, Rick, please... I'm not going to make fun of you. Stay here with me, please?" He was visibly shaking. It had taken a lot out of him to say all of that, he was utterly exhausted both physically and mentally.

"Morty." Rick simply waved him off with a small gesture of his hand, his voice weary and crestfallen. "I... I'll be back. I-I have to... I have to use the bathroom." He wiped his eyes off on his coat sleeve and began walking towards the door.

"Oh." Morty looked around the room. If this was a private hospital room, he surely had a bathroom to all himself. He quickly found the door in the far corner – bingo. "There's one right over there," He pointed to it. "Just use that one, I don't mind."

Rick made an incoherent mumble in response and hastily stepped towards the bathroom, stuffing Morty's medical papers back into the pigeonhole at the foot of the bed as he walked past. He promptly closed the bathroom door behind him, thankful for the quick escape. Once inside, he put his back to the door and leaned his head back, bumping it against the wooden surface.

The kid had really done a number on his mind. He wasn't even sure what he should be doing in response now – there was absolutely no graceful way to come back from that one. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his hip flask, and drained it of it's contents. He wasn't even sure why he was doing it now - partially out of habit, and partially out of comfort.

He stashed the empty flask back into his coat pocket and reached over to flick the toilet-seat up. With one hand braced against the wall, he unzipped his fly with the other and sighed as he relieved himself – he'd been holding that in far too long.

Ten minutes later and he felt a lot better about himself – the alcoholic buzz had reached his mind and he had washed his hands. He smoothed back the wild mess of hair on his head with a little water and looked at himself in the mirror. He splashed cold water across his face with his hands in an attempt to look normal - anything he could do to make himself look respectable again.

Rick placed a hand on the doorknob and breathed a heavy sigh – he wasn't sure if he was ready for another barrage of Morty's ramblings. Though, he knew he would have to face it again sometime. He stepped outside.

"Hey, I'm going to step out." He said, his voice a little awkward as he walked back across the room to Morty's bedside. "I-I'm going to go do some re-UURRRPsearch on this planet and see if there's anything valuable we can take back home. Get some sleep, I'll be back later." He looked down - the kid was curled up in a ball under the bed-covers. His eyebrows raised at that... what was going on with him now?

"You OK down there?" Rick placed a hand on Morty's shoulder and very gently shook him. His attention turned towards the monitors – the pain monitor was at baseline, his brainwaves were displaying as normal, his temperature was slightly elevated and his heart-rate was faster than normal. "What's wrong? Talk to me, buddy." Rick suddenly narrowed his brow at the realization of just what that invitation could mean – he didn't want the kid to unload another heartfelt ramble onto him.

"Rick..." Morty's reply was miserable. "Please don't go... can you... can you stay with me for a while?"

Rick stood there, feeling hopeless. Morty was being incredibly needy right now... he knew the reason for it, but that didn't make him any less annoyed. He released a tired sigh of defeat from his chest and sat down on the bed again. "Sure, buddy."

Morty sat up to move against his grandfather, hugging onto him again. "You're... you're not going to say anything about it, are you? You're just... you're just going to stuff it down and forget about it, just like everything else. I'm so stupid. God, I'm so stupid... I'm sorry, Rick..."

Rick made an uncomfortable sound at the back of his throat, clearly not wanting to deal with a crumbling Morty right now. "H-Hey, don't be like that, Mor-URRRGty."

"I-I... I can't do it, Rick. I can't f-forget it like you can. I'm so sorry... I don't w-want you to go away." Morty screwed up his face and burst into tears again, sobbing loudly. He had no idea why he was crying so much. He had been a storm of emotions since waking up - he felt upset with himself for being so teary-eyed, but he wasn't able to help it.

Rick made another frustrated sound and simply pulled Morty into his lap. He cradled the sobbing teenager in his arms and held onto him, making soft noises in an attempt to calm him down. He patted his back through the sobs and began to rock his upper body, hoping that would help somehow. He ran his fingers through the kid's hair and began to hum the tune to a song he had remembered from another time in his life.

He did it, just like he had done so many times 14 years ago, before he had to leave one cold January night when everything had gone to shit.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	6. Chapter 6 - Through The Haze

**Rickamarole**

Written by Kat_Aclysm

Rated : - T for language.

 **DISCLAIMER:** I don't own dis show broh. Rick and Morty is written by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, and the show is copyright to Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. Please support the official release.

 **NOTE:** Happy with the pacing in this one. Expect it to tie up soon, I have so many more ideas to write up.

* * *

 **Chapter 6 – Through The Haze**

Morty was finally asleep. Thank god for that.

Rick spent the night sleeping next to Morty on the oversized hospital bed. After the kid had cried himself to sleep, Rick had carefully slid him off his lap and tucked him under the bed covers. He would have retreated to the visitor's chair after that, had it not been for the whining Morty started making when he moved away. Rick didn't want to risk another breakdown, so he gave in. He carefully pulled some of the covers away from the sleeping kid and lay down next to him. He didn't care that there wasn't another pillow, and he certainly wasn't about to deprive Morty of his - he was an asshole to the kid all the time, sure, but doing something like that was just cold.

Just as he was drifting off to sleep, Morty had rolled towards him and bumped into his side, cuddling straight into him. Rick made an annoyed sigh and put an arm around him, patting him on the back. Anything to shut him up.

He fell into a dreamless sleep sometime after that.

Rick woke up only a few hours later – he heard shrill squeaking noises somewhere overhead, and then his right leg was grabbed - he hurriedly moved to a sitting position and took a flying swing at the creature with his fists before they could pull him onto the floor. He kicked his leg out, trying to make the other let go.

However, it simply wouldn't - the reptilian assistant backed up, it's grip still on Rick's leg. It aggressively pulled him off the bed entirely before stepping clear to safety – now it was screaming at him with loud shrieking noises. It was very harsh to listen to.

Rick stumbled to his feet and shifted backwards, getting out of the creature's way. "W-what the fuck are trying to do!? I was asleep, you motherfucker!"

Meanwhile, the yelling and loud noises had woken Morty up. He sat upright and covered his ears – anything to stop the horrible sound penetrating his eardrums. "Wh-what the hell is that?! Shut up!"

Rick growled as he saw Morty was awake. "Oh, nice job, dipshit! You woke up the kid - good job." He spat back at the reptilian, his teeth gritted in his anger. "We were sleeping. You know – sleeping, out of it, downtime. Not moving. Inert. I-i-is that an impossible concept to get through your thick skull?" He folded his arms, his brow set in a deep scowl. "That's some good quality caring right there. I'll be sure to leave you a bi-URRRPg tip for that one. W-w-way to go, dipshit."

The creature seemed to take offense to the last part of Rick's commentary and it threw it's intravenous capsule gun at him as hard as it could. It smacked him fair in the cheekbone and the old man tumbled backwards off his feet.

"Rick!" Morty cried out. He pulled the covers off himself and attempted to get out of bed, quickly regretting the idea as his lower abdominal area protested to the sudden movement with sharp pain. Instead, he turned his attention towards the reptilian attendant and began yelling at it. "W-wh-what the hell? What was that for!? Th-that... that wasn't cool, you know! He had a point – we were sleeping!" The monitors behind his bed were beeping again now, but he didn't care. "Y-you didn't have to do that! Asking him to move would have worked... probably. Damn!"

A second reptilian alien rushed into the room and began screaming at the first one. The other screamed back at it and they began arguing in loud grating scratchy chirping noises as the newcomer scooped it's arms under Rick's shoulders and hoisted him back onto his feet.

Rick attempted to smack the creature's arms away, but it held him firmly and began poking at his cheekbone. It made soft clicking noises in an attempt to calm him, or perhaps it was apologizing. He couldn't tell.

"Damn it, stop that!" Rick protested, finally succeeding in shoving it away. He placed his index and middle finger on his cheekbone and began to prod it, ignoring the pain it caused him to do so. The bone itself wasn't broken, but there was a considerable amount of blood accumulating in the area – it was going to leave a pretty hefty bruise. "You're lucky we don't s-sue you for negligence. F-fucking assholes..."

Both of the reptilian creatures made unhappy clicking noises back at him and headed for the door, one of them picking up the gun as it left. Once the door was closed behind them, they resumed arguing with each other in loud screechy sounds again as they disappeared down another corridor in the hospital.

"Rick, a-are you OK?" Morty said immediately. "That looked pretty bad. God... goddamn."

"I'm fine, Morty." Rick huffed back at him. He sat down on the visitor's chair, completely unwilling to sit on the bed again – he didn't want more of the aliens coming back and throwing another tantrum at him. "They're probably just pissed off because I was on the bed and it was f-f-fucking up your readings." He tapped his coat pocket, suddenly frowning as he remembered that his flask was empty.

" _Well, shit."_

"N-notice how you're... y-you're not hooked up to anything?" Rick motioned around the room to the monitors. "I worked it out the second I came in here – there's no need for an IV line, no heart-rate patch, no pulse oximeter clip. N-nothing."

Morty blinked in confusion and looked down at himself. He only had a vague idea about what Rick was mentioning, but his observation must have been right. "Huh." He seemed vaguely impressed.

"The surface of that bed is constantly scanning your biological rhythms. I-i-it has been since you got here, t-that's why they were pissed off – they had accurate readings on you until I sat down on the bed." He reclined in the chair, placing a hand on his throbbing cheekbone - it was starting to bother him. It didn't help that the familiar sting of alcohol withdrawal was beginning to develop behind his eyes again. "Once I was on there, it was reading my shit along with your shit... it fucked up their data. N-not very diagnostically accurate any more when that happens, Mm-Morty."

Morty nodded at him. Before he could say any more, the door to his room swung open again, and another of the reptilian creatures was standing in the doorway, clutching another capsule gun in it's arms. It took five steps across the room and stood at Morty's bedside, though it's attention was firmly glued on Rick, staring at him with unblinking golden eyes.

"Oh great, what the fuck do you want now?" Rick immediately spat back at it. "Come back to lecture me? A-are you back for round two or something? Get it over with, then."

The reptilian creature stood tall, clicking for a few moments. "The staff would like to formally apologize for the incident that occurred in this room just now. The employee that serviced this room can only speak the local language. There was some miscommunication, and-"

Rick cut it off before it could say any more. "Miscommunication?! The goddamn lizard threw his fucking gun at my face! S-so much for your Hippocratic oath bullshit. Are you going to throw that gun at me too? Why don't you get me in the... the other side of my face and balance it out, huh?!"

"Rick, j-just shut up for once." Morty groaned as he lay down. He'd seen this too many times before, and sometimes Rick's personality got him in more trouble than it was worth. "He's trying to apologize to you. Just let him, OK? Geez."

Rick stared back at Morty with raised eyebrows, genuinely wondering where that had come from. He let it go after another moment and made an irritated scoffing sound, folding his arms as he glared at the floor.

The reptilian hissed at the old man. "Throw my gun at you? I would do no such thing." It stepped around the bed and opened up the drawers near the bed, pulling out four small phials - one green, the other three were blue. "We are not unfamiliar with your kind – they sent me as I am fluent in your silly language. Please forgive their incompetence." It clicked the green phial into the first chamber of the gun, the blue phials in the second, third, and fourth. Once those were secure, it screwed a new hypodermic needle into the end of the barrel.

"There is an entire planet of carbon-based bipedal embryonic lifeforms just like you only 4 light years away from Blarghh-Aarrrghgrarr." The reptilian stood over Rick now, glowering. "But none of them are as hostile or obnoxious as you." It waved the needle over his head as it clicked at him, trying to work out the best place to insert it. "So be thankful for this one – you're not going to be billed for it. It will get you through the night."

Rick stared at the hypodermic needle apprehensively – it had to have been 8 inches long, easily. He'd already seen it in action when they had used it on Morty earlier, but he still didn't want to have anything to do with it. He backed up in the chair as the reptilian leaned over him, seeming quite keen to get away from it. "Yeah-hah... y-yeah right. Y-you think you're going to stab that thing into me? Noooo."

The reptilian attendant ignored him and hastily stuck the hypodermic needle in through the fabric of Rick's lab coat and undershirt before he could react, plunging it through skin and muscle. Once his brachial artery was located, it dispensed the complete contents of the four phials with a single click of the trigger and withdrew the needle again.

"Son of a bitch!" Rick snapped, rubbing at his arm despite the fact he had felt nothing. "What the hell did I just say to you?! Doesn't consent mean anything any more?"

"Hopefully that will make you think again about suing this hospital." The reptilian ignored the outburst and stepped away to dispose of the empty phials and the needle in the trash. It began to pull the device apart and threw other parts of it away, replacing it with sterile ones. It began to reload.

Rick opened his mouth to protest again, but he couldn't manage any intelligent sounds. He felt his mind and body relax as the drugs kicked in, weird tingling sensations blocking the pain signals to his nerves. He suddenly felt quite giddy - whatever was in those phials, he kind of wanted more of it. The withdrawal headache and the pain in his cheekbone had completely disintegrated. His head was swimming with dizziness, but he was too disorientated to care much now. He reclined in the chair and stared at the ceiling, though he was unable to focus his eyes properly. He felt very sleepy all of a sudden.

"T-that... th.. t-thaaaat's some goooood shit..." He managed to mumble after another moment.

Morty just stared at his grandfather and rolled his eyes – he'd seen him in much worse condition than this, especially when high on collaxion crystals. He didn't even notice that the alien had reloaded it's medicine dispensing gun and was standing over him until he saw the creature's shadow in his peripheral vision.

"W-what the hell did you just do to him?" Morty wondered as he looked up at the attendant, also finding himself staring at the huge hypodermic needle. He suddenly understood Rick's apprehension before, and swallowed nervously.

"That dosage contained a sedative and an analgesic," The creature casually answered the question as it turned it's attention back to Rick, keeping an eye on him. "Also, a complex chemical nearly identical to the one he was carrying around. You may wish to encourage your elder to get that substance addiction under control before it terminates him."

"Uhh, y-yeah... umm, no. That's not a very good idea, sir, ah, m-madam... both? None?" Morty bit his lower lip, not having a clue what to call it. Come to think of it, he didn't know what sex it was, or if it had more than one, or even if any of these aliens had differing sexes at all. "That never goes down well at home. M-mom is too scared to have a family intervention because she's scared that Rick is... s-she's scared he's going to leave the family again." He felt suddenly awkward – he'd kind of just blurted that out without thinking about it. Rick was still in the room, but he quickly observed that he was still staring at the ceiling.

The reptilian alien didn't seem to notice that Morty had just spoken at all. It checked over the gun to make sure that it was secure and properly loaded. "To answer your question completely," It clicked "This lime bulb contains an enzyme we grow downstairs that assists repair and halts cell damage." It tapped the green phial in the loaded gun. "Same as this." It clicked at him, noting his unhappy expression. "Stay still, this will not hurt."

Morty looked away as the reptilian attendant carefully jabbed the needle into his right leg, having chosen his femoral artery again. He was relieved when it stepped away again to dispose of the trash.

"That should get both of you through the night without further incident. Now go back to sleep." The reptilian clicked at him as it walked out of the room again, closing the door behind it.

"H-heeeyy. Heeeeeyyyy Mmm... Morty..." Rick managed to slur out, struggling with the words. "Y-you... y-you know that's... not... n-not going to happen, right?" He sat up, his head flopping forwards in the same movement. He tried to raise his head, but it simply wouldn't work.

Morty felt his heart pounding in his chest. Shit. Was he was fully cognitive? It seemed that he had heard the whole thing in any case. "Y-yeah... yeah OK, Rick." He awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, feeling incredibly guilty for mentioning Rick's substance abuse at all.

Rick scowled as he tried to regain control of his body. "You're... y-you... you're my little buddy, Mmm-Mor... Morty." He glanced in Morty's general direction and pointed at the blurred shapes ahead of him. "You're my Morty... y-you're mine to take care of. I've gone t-through h-hell to keep you alive." He scowled at that statement, it carried much more weight than the kid could possibly know at the moment. "I'm not.. I'm not just... I'm going to lee... l-leave you, l-little buddy. You're... y-you're stuck with me."

Morty just stared back at him, silent, his eyebrows raised. He didn't know how to process what he was hearing right now.

"I'll... I'll say t-th-this now, though..." Rick was having more trouble articulating his speech than normal. Despite the overwhelming sense of calm hanging over his body, it was frustrating him. He made a couple of awkward attempts to pull his empty hip flask out of his coat pocket, succeeding on the third try. He turned it upside-down. "Y-you don't have a f-fucking clue about this – n-none of you do. DON'T... b-bring it up again." He flung his arm out, making a very uncoordinated pitch, throwing the hip flask across the room. It made a loud clattering noise as it bounced across the floor.

Morty narrowed his eyes.

"Just... d-don't. It's... i-it's better for everyone that way." Rick lay back on the recliner chair, putting his head back. He closed his eyes and folded his arms, deciding it would be better if he just slept through the chemically-induced haze. He'd only gotten a few hours of decent sleep anyway.

Morty was scowling now – Rick was deflecting again and it frustrated him. He made a loud sigh and lay down again, his back facing the other. "Goodnight, Rick." He grabbed the remote used it to turn off the remaining lights in the room.

He couldn't work out whether his grandfather was being sincere, or whether it was all just chemically-induced rambling. He hoped it was more of the former, and less of the latter.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	7. Chapter 7 - Bribery

**Rickamarole**

Written by Kat_Aclysm

Rated : - M for language.

 **DISCLAIMER:** Read the disclaimer from earlier chapters. I don't own these characters, this is a work of fanfiction. Support the official release.

 **NOTE:** This has been really fun to write so far. The most annoying part is coming up with chapter names.

* * *

 **Chapter 7 – Bribery**

A decent night's sleep had actually done Rick some good for once - it was the first time in a long time that he had woken up without some kind of hangover. He sat up with ease, feeling much more co-ordinated than he had been several hours ago. He promptly moved to his feet and made a beeline for the restroom, deciding to take care of his most pressing problem before anything else.

Meanwhile, Morty was still in bed, though he was in the beginning stages of waking up. The first thing that came to mind was the conversation he had with his grandfather before he had gone to sleep. He immediately felt bad about it – he hadn't meant to discuss the substance abuse issue with the alien, it had just kind of come out. He almost felt like he had betrayed Rick in a way.

Morty sat up properly as he heard the toilet flush, his attention following what appeared to be a very content Rick heading towards him. That confused him – why was he in such a good mood?

"Gooooood morning." Rick said in Morty's direction as he wiped his damp hands on some paper towel. After he was done, he crumpled it up and tossed it into the garbage. "How are you doing this morning, buddy?"

"I, uh, umm... g-good morning, I guess? I'm fine." Morty guiltily glanced off to the side. "Rick, I need to talk to you about last night, w-we need to talk about it. I'm sorry I-"

"Don't worry about it, Morty." Rick cut him off with a simple wave of his hand. "Now - do you want me to talk to somebody out in the hallway and see what we can do about finally getting some food into you? I want you to eat something."

"No..." Morty shook his head. "I'm not hungry." He glanced off to the side - all the horror stories he had heard about the quality of hospital food had come to mind. He doubted that this alien planet would be much better than anywhere else.

Rick narrowed his eyes suspiciously, his attention turning to the monitors behind the bed as if they would help somehow. He saw nothing out of the ordinary and the readouts weren't giving him any evidence to suggest Morty was lying. "I want you to eat something, Morty. You know how this works, right? The sooner you eat, the sooner you get out of here."

"Umm, n-no, that's alright." Morty carefully slid off the bed and headed for the bathroom. "I'll eat something later. Probably. C-can't you just make a portal and send us home that way? That always seems to work." He placed a hand on the door, pushing it open.

"Well d-duh, Morty. But look, I'm n-URRRGGot a doctor." Rick folded his arms, seeming annoyed. "I'm not going to take you home if they don't give you a clean bill of health. It's probably a huge waste of time to wait it out, but I-I'm... I'm not going to risk taking you home and having something else go wrong on the ride home. Do you know what that is, Morty? I-i-it's called negligence. It goes against duty of care. D-do you even know what duty of care is? I bet y-you probably think it's a video game or something."

Morty ignored him and slipped inside, locking the door behind him.

"Punk-ass little bitch." Rick retreated to the chair, muttering in his annoyance as he let the other go. Though he had to admit, Morty being stubborn was a good sign - it was certainly better than he had been in the last 48 hours or so.

"You'd better be taking a giant shit in there, Morty," Rick called out to him. "In case I forgot to mention it, that's the other part of them letting you go home!"

"Shut up, Rick!" The reply was yelled back at him through the closed door.

Rick couldn't help but smirk as the outburst confirmed his thoughts – the kid was definitely feeling better. He pulled the portal gun out of his coat pocket as well as a screwdriver, and he began to occupy his mind by taking the panels off the side. The portal gun didn't need repairs or adjustment – poking at the circuitry inside was just something to do as he waited for Morty to come out of the bathroom again.

He didn't spend long in there – maybe five minutes at most. Morty glared hard at Rick the entire way as he headed back to bed. His face was red with embarrassment and there was absolutely nothing he wanted to say to the other right now – he was frustrated that he couldn't talk about last night and he didn't want to be humiliated all over again if the other was only going to talk about bodily functions. As he he lay down again, he turned his back to his grandfather and pulled the covers over himself once more.

Rick seemed incredibly amused and set the partially dismantled portal gun off to the side. "Hey, don't be like that, Morty." He stood over the bed and gently shook Morty's shoulder. "If it helps, I wasn't kidding about taking a big shit. That... that's really is a thing, y-you know. R-r-really important."

"Rick. Just... just drop it, OK?" Morty was completely fed up. "Why don't you... um... why don't you go out and steal some of this planet's shit? They probably have better technology than us, I don't know. H-haven't you got some errands to run or something?" he sat up only to glare at Rick again.

"Noooooope. Already done." Rick's reply was smug and content. "Took the ship out for a wash while you were still out of it." He waved the screwdriver around as he talked, pointing it at Morty. "Y-you really did a number on the upholstery, buddy. Whole thing smelled... t-terrible."

"Great, thanks." Morty's reply came, his tone still completely fed up. "I really wanted to hear that." The younger male flattened his brows, his expression completely unamused.

"D-don't worry about it. I've also paid the bill on this place, Morty." Rick was idly twirling the screwdriver in his fingers now. "The conversion rates on Schmeckles to Flerbos is terrible at the moment, a bunch of assholes tanked the currency. It-it's not even worth the ride across the galaxy to the nearest exchange center. Y-y-you wanna know something really cool, though? This planet's equivalent of Wall Street highly values iron. I-it's like their gold, Morty, they're cra-UUURPzy about it. Paid the bill out of that – it was pretty easy to find in a-another dimension. Suckers."

Morty sat up to fluff up his pillow. He was used to this kind of rambling and would just sit quiet through it as usual.

"Stupid dumbasses. The only reason it's so valuable to these idiots is because it's rare on their planet. They're a space-faring species too - it hasn't occurred to them to fly out and get more? T-th-they're about as stupid as it gets." Rick was amused with himself now. "We're definitely coming back to this planet when you're feeling better. We could get r-rr-riggidy rich off a scheme like that, yo."

"Yeah, great, cool." Morty dismissed the idea, totally uninterested in what Rick was saying. He glanced up at the ceiling, noticing a small flat-screen television affixed to the roof, or at least that's what he assumed it was. His eyes followed the appliance cord – it was wrapped around a ceiling mount and disappeared into a cross-section of the roofing panels. A rather small black-box hung off the side of it - he guessed that it was some kind of antenna or decoder unit.

Rick sat up, watching Morty's observations carefully, taking his attentiveness as another good sign. "H-hey, you're feeling a bit better today, huh? You wanna watch some TV?"

Morty blinked, suddenly quite happy at the change of subject. "Y-yeah, that would be good. You gonna upgrade it? I doubt these guys have a cable subscription of any kind."

"Y-you know me too well, buddy." Rick got to his feet and headed over to the television, ripping the black box off the side. He pitched it at the ground as hard as he could and then crouched down on the ground so he could begin the alteration process. He took a shard of crystallized xanthanite from his coat pocket and mounted it in place, before he clapped the lid back on the unit and began to hook it back up to the TV again.

"I think you have the TV remote," Rick stated plainly as he screwed the black box back onto the side of the television. He gave it a good thump with his fist and pocketed his screwdriver, his attention turning back towards the other. "There, it's done. W-why don't you give it a try?"

Morty began to idly flick channels while Rick sat back down again. He hadn't been interested in watching the television himself, he was more concerned with Morty's apparent lack of appetite. He didn't let this show however, and resumed pulling apart his portal gun, deciding to attempt broaching the subject again later on.

Another opportunity to bring it up again came sooner than he had anticipated – only an hour had passed when one of the alien attendants opened the door, carrying a lidded food tray and a container of water. It slid the tray onto the hospital bed table and dropped the water bottle beside it, before it wheeled the lot across the room to the bedside. It slipped out of the room again, not saying a thing.

Morty glanced across at the food tray only for a moment – the strong smell of something unidentifiable filled the air, and although it wasn't unpleasant, it certainly wasn't appealing either, and he feared his previous thoughts about hospital food were about to come true. Morty used the remote to prop the bed up into a seating position and leaned back against the raised portion, relaxing as he resumed watching the TV. A show about flying dogs had captivated his attention, and he was interested in seeing how it ended.

"Morty," Rick looked up from what he was doing. By now he had pulled the entire portal gun apart and pieces of it were haphazardly arranged all over the seat beside him. He nodded towards the bedside table, watching the other with curiosity now. "Eat something."

"No." Morty's reply was abrupt and short, seeming completely disinterested. He moved across the bed just far enough to reach the tray table and plucked the water bottle off it before pushing the rolling table away, hoping to emphasize the point with his statement. His eyes stayed glued to the TV.

Rick sighed in exasperation and rubbed his forehead, containing the desire to get angry. "Come on, buddy. We've been over this - do you want to go home? You said you'd eat something later. Well, It's later now. I-if it were me, I'd be starving."

"Rick, I s-said no." Morty scowled back at him. "I'm not hungry." He pried the lid off the peculiar-shaped water bottle and began drinking from it. He'd had no idea he was so thirsty and drank half of it within the minute.

"Take it easy..." Rick muttered as he moved off the chair, stepped around the bed, and stood over the food tray. He was immediately met with the scent of something vaguely savory underneath the lid, though it wasn't his to open. He pushed it back to the beside. "At least try to eat some of... I don't know what the fuck this is."

Morty shifted his attention back to Rick, glaring at him now. "God, Rick, stop pushing me, you're being a real jerk. You're not going to just trust my judgment on this one and l-let it go, a-are you?"

"Nope." Rick folded his arms, his brow flattened in a completely unimpressed stern expression. He'd had plenty of previous experience with this exact issue, hard ass paternal authority was something he was good at. "I want you to eat something, it's not going to kill you."

"Fine! Just... jus-just shut up then! Damn!" Morty snapped back at him. He sat on the edge of the bed, picked up what he guessed was a fork (it only had two prongs), and flicked the lid off the plate. The tray was laid out like a microwave TV dinner with two equal half-portions on either side of it - there was some unidentifiable brown lumpy stuff on one side and a large portion of purple mashed-potato looking substance beside it. Morty poked at the brown stuff with the fork, visibly cringing when he uncovered what looked like an insect-leg that had been buried amongst the mush. He sank backwards at the sight, looking utterly grossed out.

"Yeah, um... that actually looks pretty terrible." Rick peered over him to get a better look at the food, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not actually sure these aliens know what humans are supposed to eat." He moved away and began picking up the pieces of the portal gun. "So, I have a proposal for you - I'm bored, a-and you s-still need to eat something."

"Oh not this again..." Morty rolled his eyes. "I don't really-"

"Shut up and hear me out, Morty." Rick grunted in frustration, cutting him off. "I don't care if I have to bribe you at this point – you're going to have to eat eventually." He picked up the portal gun handle and began screwing the casing back together. "Y-you want burgers or something? H-help me out here, buddy. What would it take?"

"Y-yeah, I guess..." Morty admitted. "Burgers? T-that actually sounds OK." He pushed the tray table away a second time, breathing a heavy sigh of relief that he didn't have to eat the horrid looking mush.

Once the portal gun was hastily stuck back together, Rick stepped around the bed and took his ray gun out of his coat pocket, firing it at the food tray - it disintegrated into a pile of smoldering ash. "N-now they can't make you eat it either." He loudly burped as he fired the portal gun at the closest wall and stepped through.

Morty sat back in bed after the portal dissipated and resumed flipping through the television channels. He found a cooking show where everyone was covered head to toe in mashed potatoes and they were all throwing oranges at the ceiling. Click. A tall rainbow colored alien newsreader had begun interviewing shorter alien tourists inside of a cave. Yawn. Click. A large anthropomorphic jellybean was dancing around in circles with a white unicorn - Morty visibly shuddered at the image and quickly changed the channel. Click. A violent book review show - the hosts were busy bludgeoning each other to death with the spines of their books. Click.

"Aww, geez. There must be something on... i-infinity channels and they're all garbage." Morty grumbled aloud to himself. He flicked through several more channels and finally settled on a sitcom about monster trucks which talked and had feelings. He sat up properly and was happy to watch it while he waited.

Rick stumbled back through the portal within the next couple of hours. He was carrying a paper bag from a fast-food restaurant and several candy bars. He blew the dust away from the bedside table and dumped the items on top of it before retreating to the visitor's chair once again.

"Nearly didn't make it back," Rick began to grumble as he sat down. "Y'know, t-this doesn't happen very often, but Grandpa made a mistake. I put the po-UURRRRGrtal gun back together wrong and now the battery is leaking – it discharged nearly 80% of it's output through that last portal hop. Had to... h-had to charge it up again b-before coming back." In his time away, he had obtained a new hip flask - he uncapped it, took a couple of sips, and began to work.

Morty only acknowledged his presence for a moment, the intoxicating familiar smell of burgers had most of his attention. He tore the brown paper bag open and began to stuff fries into his mouth, behaving like he hadn't eaten anything in years.

"Y-you're a goddamn liar, Morty. You know that, ri-UURRRGGght?" Rick burped loudly. He dropped the portal gun back onto the seat and pulled the battery out. "You're also bad at it. I saw right through your pathetic ruse." Despite his words, he was smirking – he peered over the top of the portal gun to observe that the bribery offer had worked. He'd won.

"You l-little piece of shit."

* * *

To Be Continued...


	8. Chapter 8 - Home

**Rickamarole**

Written by Kat_Aclysm

Rated : - T for language.

 **DISCLAIMER:** Read the disclaimer from earlier chapters. I don't own these characters, this is a work of fanfiction. Support the official release.

 **Note:** Tried to wind it up this chapter, next one will be the last.

* * *

 **Chapter 8 – Home**

Over the next couple of days, Rick would continue running food to his grandson while he was stuck in hospital. He brought food at least twice a day - sometimes it was fast food, sometimes restaurant food in styrofoam take-out containers. He had brought leftovers really late on the second day because he had forgotten the time (he had been out all day stealing things and pulling them apart), but Morty didn't care and had eaten it anyway. The reptilian aliens either didn't know about the food runs or didn't care – neither of them were particularly prepared to find out which one it was.

On the third day, Rick came through the portal first thing that morning. This time he had brought an entire box of breakfast bars and a small suitcase along with him in preparation for Morty's discharge - he didn't know when that was, but the old man guessed it had to be soon. He had tossed the box of breakfast bars onto the bed and was intrigued to discover that Morty wasn't in bed. However, the kid was quickly located though, as he could hear the sound of running shower water in the bathroom behind the closed door.

Rick wasted no time knocking on the door. "Morty," He called out to the other in the same tone he would use for a young child, his tone saccharine and condescending. "Have you... you know, ahem," He coughed deliberately, "Taken care of business yet?"

"S-shut up, Rick!" Morty's reply was instant. "For your information, stupid," He called back. It was easy to tell he was being defensive, most likely out of embarrassment. "They discharged me a couple of hours ago, and I-I was waiting for you to show up. I didn't know how long you'd be so I decided to just take a shower."

"So, that's a yes?" Rick couldn't help himself, smirking.

"Why are you doing this me!?" Morty was yelling now. "Y-y-you're smart, you can work it out! Geez, Rick, just... j-just shut up about it. D-damn! I said I got discharged already, i-isn't that enough of an answer for you?"

"W-well, I gotta say," Rick ignored his tone and put a hand on the door handle, "It's certainly convenient timing." He turned the handle, surprised to discover that it wasn't locked. He promptly shoved his way inside. "I brought some of your shit from home. Pants, underwear, and some of those yellow shirts you like." He waved the suitcase at Morty before dropping it on the counter next to the sink. "W-we're leaving. Pu-UURRRGGt your clothes on."

"Oh geez, Rick! I'm showering over here! Get out!" Morty yelled back at him, immediately covering his private parts with both hands. "I-I-I'm naked! H-h-how could you just barge in like that!? Y-you're not deaf, you could totally hear the water running!"

"Relax, Morty." Rick rolled his eyes and shut the door again. "I've seen your ding-dong before, it's n-nothing out of the or-UUURRPPdinary. I-i-it's not like I was going to take a picture of it or anything." He stepped away once again, heading for the bed. Once there, he sat down on the edge and ripped open the box of breakfast bars. He immediately opened one and took a couple of bites, washing it down with whiskey as he watched the TV.

Morty came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, fully dressed. His hair was still wet and he rubbed it dry with a towel. "H-hey, Rick? Come to think of it... I've been out of the house for a number of days. What did you tell mom?"

"Oh, that." Rick took another bite of his breakfast bar, not taking his eyes off the TV. "I told her we were camping. All that... a-adventure stuff. Nat-UURRRre and shit." He picked up one of the breakfast bars and tossed it over for Morty to catch.

Morty narrowed his eyes. "You lied to her?" He caught the breakfast bar, dropping his towel on the floor in the same movement. "S-she didn't like... get upset about me not being at school or anything?"

"N-not really." Rick shrugged. "As time goes on, I think your mom is starting to care less and less about that stuff." He tossed the wrapper onto the bed and picked up another breakfast bar, opening it so he could munch on that one as well.

"Why?" Morty blinked, confused – that news honestly surprised him. Did he know something he didn't? The kid sat down next to his grandfather on the bed, wanting to get more information out of him. "Mom and dad have a-always been crazy about me keeping my attendance up at school, t-that hasn't changed." He stared down at his breakfast bar and opened it so he could begin eating, talking with his mouth full. "A-and it doesn't look like it's going to any time soon."

"Well I don't know about your dad, but y-your mom stopped caring about your school attendance a long time ago. I think she's just keeping up appearances when she bitches about it now." Rick looked down at the kid, his eyes narrowing. "She stopped pretty much right after I said I would teach youUUURP some shit. S-shut her up reeaaal-UUURP good."

Morty blinked - this was news to him. He swallowed hard and stared at the other in disbelief. "You... you would? You're not lying? Y-you would really do that... for me?"

"Well yeah, duh." Rick shrugged. "Y-you can't navigate your way around the galaxy without knowing shit about it, Morty." He took another bite of the bar. "I already taught you how to drive the ship - why do you think I did that?"

"So we can... trade places in the car? S-so you can nap on the way somewhere?" They were more guesses than actual questions.

"Huh. Well yeah, there's that. Smartass." Rick playfully cuffed the kid in the arm, though it was clear he was still annoyed underneath the gesture. His brow furrowed, his expression serious once more. "I-I can't believe I have to explain this to you - I thought it was p-p-pretty obvious." He finished the second breakfast bar and tossed the wrapper over his shoulder. "O-oh god, don't make me do this. Y-you're really going to make me spell it out to you, aren't you?"

"Umm..." Morty looked worried and glanced off to the side. He was half expecting to be told off now.

Rick took quick note of the kid's body language and placed a hand on Morty's shoulder. "Stop that." He made a fed-up sigh and shook his head, he knew that Morty's apprehension was coming from being berated by him so frequently and felt a little bad for the kid. He took a long sip from his hip flask.

"Look, fine." He continued the explanation, a faint hint of resignation in his tone now. "I get it – y-you want to run shi-URRRRGGGt with me and that's OK. However, y-you're growing up fast, Morty. Perhaps too fast." He twisted his mouth into an uncomfortable expression at the thought. "I'm assuming you're going to w-want t-to... to end up running your own operation one day. A-and if that's the case, I'm going to have to prepare you for that."

Morty just stared at him, utterly dumbfounded with what he was hearing right now.

"Let's face it – there's n-nothing for going us on Earth for... p-people like us, Morty, i-iii-it's a lost cause. And y-you can't just fly around the galaxy withou-UUUURRRPPt knowing anything about it." Rick's tone was firm now. He began jabbing Morty in the shoulder to emphasize his words. "Y-you're going to get yourself killed if you don't learn anything – I've seen too much of it already. Too many i-ii-ignorant, dumb... dumb... i-idiot rookies who get in over their head too quickly and the the universe ends up crushing them into a fine paste."

"O-oh geez..." Morty cringed at the mental image conjured up by the thought.

Rick placed both hands on Morty's shoulders, and began to lightly shake him."I-I keep telling you that school is a waste of time, b-because it is. You want to learn something, Mor-URRRGGty? L-learn something practical – learn how to read co-ordinates and how to trace important elements in different dimensions. Learn how to find components you need when you're in a bind. Learn h-how to triangulate shi-UUURRGGGt on a map. Learn how not to die. L-learn how not to die, Morty."

Morty slowly nodded. He was quiet for a few minutes as he tried to process everything he'd just heard. "You... you'd really teach me?"

Rick stood up and brushed the crumbs off his lap. "O-of all the things I just said, you're getting hung up over that one?" He took another sip from his hip flask and shrugged. "The part about not dying was more impor-UURRPPtant, at least in my opinion."

"No, n-no, I'm not..." Morty mumbled. "I'm just... flattered? Nobody's ever really spent the time to teach me, t-th-they just wave me off and discredit me on that whole learning disability thing."

"Idio-UUURRRPts." Rick burped out the reply. "I've told you already – you think differently to them, w-we both do. You're not stupid, they're just ignorant." Rick was scowling now. "I-I mean, look at me Morty." He started shaking him again. "L-look at meUURRRRPP. Do I look stupid to you? D-do I?"

Morty quickly shook his head. "N-no, no. N... n-not at all. You're like the smartest person I know, Rick."

Rick moved back from him, nodding. "Y-yeah, so do you get it now? W-what's the point of having standard education if there's no such thing as a standard child? That's pretty much bullshit if you ask me."

Morty suddenly stood up and threw his arms around his grandfather, hugging him as hard as he could. It was the only thing he could think of to express his gratitude.

Rick visibly flinched, having been startled by the sudden gesture. He placed a hand on Morty's head and ruffled his hand through his hair. "L-let's just get out of here, huh? This place has been boring me for days, and I know y-you don't want to be here any more." He pushed the door and held it open as he stepped into the hospital corridor. "Come on, buddy, let's go - these aliens are shit." He used his free hand to take a sip from his hip flask.

Morty nodded and headed back into the bathroom to retrieve his suitcase. He hastily stuffed his belongings into it and tossed the hospital gown onto the floor as he headed across the room.

As he watched Morty head towards him, he pointed to the bed, his flask still in his hand. "Grab those breakfast bars, Morty... y-you only ate one of them. It's gonna be a long r-ride back... you're going to want to fill up on them."

Morty nodded. "Where... w-where did you get these? They look like they're from home." He snatched the box up and stepped out the door into the hallway, immediately feeling quite lost. He had never left the room the entire time he'd stayed in the hospital, and the only time he'd been in the other areas, he couldn't remember because he'd been completely out of it.

"They are. Y-your mom gave them to me when I went home to grab your clothes. W-when I said I didn't know how long it would be until we got home, s-she insisted. Kept nagging me until I took them." Rick seemed annoyed again. "Can d-definitely tell you're rela-URRRRGGted to her – she's stubborn as he-UURRRRP." He coughed for a moment - that last burp had brought some stomach acid up with it. He quickly swallowed it and coughed again.

"You OK there, Rick?" Morty raised his eyebrows. "T-that one didn't sound so great."

"I'm f-fine." Rick brushed it off with a wave of his hand and begin to walk down the corridor. "I have to sign your discharge papers. T-these guys are also going to want to give you some medication to go home with. Follow me."

Rick led the way through the hospital wings and corridors ahead, Morty following close behind. He had no idea how big the hospital really was until they had been walking through it for nearly five minutes – the building was an absolute labyrinth of rooms, corridors and staircases. There were aliens of all different kinds he'd never seen before (some of them inpatients) down every corridor they turned. Everyone seemed busy, or otherwise preoccupied.

The pair finally stopped in front of an elevator at the end of the corridor and Rick casually reached out to push a button, folding his arms as he waited in silence.

"Umm... Rick..." Morty frowned. "W-what kind of medication do these guys want to give me? I, uh... I'm feeling fine now, I-I don't really need anything."

"I don't have a clue, Morty." Rick shrugged. "Probably pain management drugs, or antibiotics. Maybe both. You might as well pick them up, I already paid for them. Make these reptile fuckers happier to discharge you. Even if you don't use them, I can p-p-probably extract something useful from them. F-for science." He took out his hip flask and took another sip from it.

Morty was about to say something else, but the elevator doors suddenly swung open and he stepped inside without saying a word. Rick stepped in after him and poked the button to close the doors. Morty couldn't work out what the buttons said – every single one of them completely unrecognizable alien squiggles all over them. Rick obviously knew what they were, because he pressed a couple more of them without a second thought.

Morty glanced up at the other awkwardly after another moment of silence, then off to the side. "Umm... do I have to come back here? T-to get the stitches out, I mean."

"Y-you ask a lot of questions, Morty." Rick shook his head as he pocketed the flask again. "I'll do it myself when they're ready to come out. Th-t-the internal ones dissolve on their own. T-typically takes about a week. I've done it plenty of times before, i-it's not even hard." He turned his attention towards Morty and lightly poked him in the shoulder, "It's so easy, even you could do it. I-I'll show you how."

It was a terrible attempt at being friendly and even he knew it. When he didn't get a reply and saw that Morty was scowling, the older man made an irritated sigh and was quiet again.

Morty was still angry as the doors opened on the different floor. Did Rick really just suggest he was stupid again? He had no time to wonder, because the old man was already moving ahead. The teenager followed behind this time, glaring at his grandfather's back.

Rick continued to lead the way, silent for the rest of the trip to the front desk. In reality he was thinking hard to himself, pondering how to get around the fact his grandson was so easily offended. It somehow made him feel bad that he'd upset the kid, yet it annoyed the hell out of him at the same time. He began to hope that the teenager would grow out of it someday.

"It's up here." Rick nodded ahead of him, pointing ahead to a pair of swinging doors which led back to the emergency room. He held the door open as Morty slipped through, and then he made his way to the front counter, leaning an elbow on it.

A rather petite sized reptilian alien looked up at the pair from behind it's desk, peering over thick rimmed glasses. "Bleer-argggh aaabrealgh?" It gurgled out, stopping after another moment. It's segmented feelers twitched in thought and then it spoke again. "Can I help you?"

"I'm taking 515-G out. I-I need him discharged." Rick pulled a small card out of his pocket and dropped it onto the counter - it bounced on the counter-top with a ceramic clattering sound. "G-gimmie his medication and shit s-s-so we can leave."

The reptilian creature didn't seem at all phased by the old man's rudeness and simply picked up the small card. It slotted the card into a machine under the desk, and then it began to remove several hexagonal glass ampules from the lower drawers of the desk. Once it had gathered them all up and counted them out correctly, it placed them onto counter where the card had been dropped, along with a large sealed envelope.

"Instructions in there, and discharge documents." The alien pushed a clipboard onto the desk, and then reached into another drawer, placing a couple of syringes in small sterile packets onto the counter alongside the clipboard. "If complications, bring back."

"Yeah, great." Rick seemed completely uninterested in making conversation as he pulled a pen out of his coat pocket and hastily scribbled a signature on the discharge document. "Thanks, I guess. W-we're leaving." He snatched up the hexagonal ampules and documentation and hastily shoved them into his coat pockets. "The ship is parked a couple of blocks away, Morty. D-do you want to stay here and wait for me to drive it around?"

Morty simply glared back at him.

"C-come on then." Rick headed outside.

Morty followed close behind, deciding to let him have it once he was on the hospital steps. "W-wh-what... what the hell was that back there, Rick?" He balled his hands into fists. "D-did you seriously just call me stupid? First you say I'm not, t-th-then you say I am again... which one is it? Make up your mind, god-dammit! I don't understand you... why the hell would you even say that?!"

Rick gritted his teeth and stopped in his tracks, placing a hand on his forehead. He gave himself a moment to stay calm before he swung around on his heels and made his way back over to the kid, standing in front of him.

"Look, Morty. It's not my fault i-iii-if you take these things the wrong way." He crouched down and placed his hands on Morty's shoulders. "S-settle down, buddy - I wasn't trying to upset you that time, I-I mea-URRRRGGn it. C-come on." He realized that he had just burped in his grandson's face and hoped that the kid wouldn't get upset about that too. He looked the other square in the eyes, his expression serious. "S-s-sorry..." He scowled suddenly, muttering, "Th-there, you made me say it."

Morty's expression visibly softened as he looked back at his grandfather, realizing that he was telling the truth. "Y-y-yeah, OK..." He twisted his mouth into an uncomfortable expression, suddenly feeling bad for his outburst. "I'm sorry, too. Let's j-just forget it."

Rick stood up again and scratched the back of his head, feeling that mixture of guilt and annoyed return. "So, w-which is it? Are you staying here, or-or do you want me to me to drive the ship around?"

"Umm, I'll stay here, I-I guess?" Morty moved away and sat down on the top step, being sure to stay out of the way of the hospital doors. He set his suitcase down beside him and open it to stuff the box of breakfast bars inside.

Rick nodded and simply waved as he walked the rest of the way down the steps and headed off down the street.

Morty sighed as he took in the scenery around him. He'd been here a few days, but he was still seeing it all for the first time. The street looked just like any other normal street back on Earth, save for the fact there were odd colored plants growing in planters nearby that he had never seen before. Weirdly shaped vehicles of all sizes were parked neatly on the street in marked parking spaces, and all manner of creatures were walking through the area.

Suddenly, a black box shaped vehicle came to a halt on the side of the road in front of the hospital and a large gelatinous blob creature ran up the steps. It headed straight through the ER doors, leaving a trail of green goo in it's wake. Morty guessed that sort of thing happened fairly often, because he saw it a second time before he heard Rick's flying ship again. He looked up as he saw it sail overhead, only to watch it clumsily land in a parking space just a few yards down the road.

Rick began waving at the teenager, motioning for him to hurry. Morty promptly got to his feet, grabbed his suitcase and practically ran down the stairs. He could already see the ship rising off the ground as he opened the passenger's door.

"Hurry your ass up, Morty!" Rick hissed. "I'm i-illegally parked, this is a loading zone. I've already been fined once for parking here, I-I don't wanna pay for it again!"

Morty jumped into the passenger's seat and shut the door behind him. He barely had time to put on his seatbelt as he felt the ship violently take off. He heard the suitcase clatter somewhere behind him as he held onto his seat, very unhappy with the gravitational forces he felt during the abrupt ascent. In no time at all, the ship had sailed up through the stratosphere, and then the thermosphere of the of the planet. In another moment, they were back in space.

"It's gonna be a long trip back, buddy. S-so get comfortable." Rick seemed to calm down again and pressed a few buttons on the console, switching the ship controls to a comfortable cruise setting. "We'll stop somewhere if y-you need a bathroom break, but I'd really prefer it if we didn't. I wanna get home and... w-work on stuff." He muttered the last part, becoming quiet again.

Morty nodded and adjusted the seat settings, leaning back. He could detect the faint smell of mint on the seat cushions and looked around the ship – it had been completely cleaned up, even the floor was devoid of liquor bottles and garbage. He sniffed the air again to make sure – there wasn't even a trace of anything unpleasant in the cabin.

"L-like it?" Rick raised an eyebrow as he watched his grandson. "T-there was a planet not too far from the one you were stuck on, they cleaned it up p-pretty good." He took out his hip flask and drank the small amount that had been left in the bottom of it, seeming disappointed that it was empty.

"Y-yeah it's not bad." Morty had to admit. He went quiet again and turned his attention away, not really wanting to continue the subject because he knew he was the reason it had needed cleaning in the first place.

Rick cast him a sideways glance. "Look, I've already told you - don't worry about it. This shit happens sometimes. Y-you just gotta... you gotta roll with it." He dropped his hip flask into Morty's lap, offering the younger male a grin. "S-speaking of roll with it, do me a favor, will ya, buddy? Fill that up for me. Y'know, d-don't drink and drive - I don't wanna spill it everywhere." He smirked in amusement.

"Umm..." Morty tensed as he bit down the desire to talk about it – he was pretty sure that drinking WHILE driving was even worse. "Fill it up with what?" He picked up the silver flask and began look down on the floor around his chair.

Rick waved a hand over his shoulder, motioning somewhere behind the driver's seat. "I have s-some... some... I don't even remember what it is. Grab it, I'll tell you. Y-you'll find it back there s-somewhere, I took another bottle from the house after the car was cleaned. When you're old enough, I'll show you where it is... i-if you don't drink it all."

Morty sighed – he knew that it was a special privilege that Rick would even consider offering to share his stash with him, but he found himself unimpressed and disapproving of the whole thing. He unbuckled his seat belt and hopped into the back seat, immediately finding the bottle lying on it's side next to his suitcase on the floor.

"Is this it?" He picked it up and sat back down in the passenger's seat again, staring at the brown-gold liquor inside. The label was in foreign characters that looked a lot like children's scribbles. "Wh-what is this?" Morty noticed it was already half-empty... just how quickly did Rick go through one of these anyway?

Rick turned his attention towards Morty for only a moment. "That's whiskey f-from some dumb planet nobody cares about. That stuff is p-p-pretty much the only thing they do well. S-single malt, 18 years. Gooooood sh-shit. N-none of that cheap soapy c-crap." He resisted the temptation to snatch away the entire bottle and kept both hands on the steering wheel.

The teenager held the hip flask in-between his knees and uncorked the lid of the whiskey bottle, the sharp scent hitting his senses almost instantly – he didn't like it at all. He did as he was told however, and carefully topped the flask up to the brim, screwing the cap back on when he was done. He re-corked the bottle, and did his seatbelt up again.

Rick wasted no time reaching out to grab at the flask, and Morty begrudgingly handed it over – he knew better than to put up any resistance against Rick's dependency on alcohol. The younger male dropped the bottle on the floor again and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes, having little else to do with himself.

The rest of the journey back to Earth carried on in relative silence - Rick kept his focus on the way ahead and Morty had fallen asleep. It was well past midnight at their home timezone when the ship landed again. The ship landed in the driveway with an abrupt thud.

"Hey, buddy," Rick wasted no time to reach across and shake his grandson's shoulder, his voice low and gentle so as not to startle the boy out of his wits.

"W-wake up, buddy." He shook him again. "W-we're home."

* * *

To Be Continued...


	9. Chapter 9 - What Now? Everything

**Rickamarole**

Written by Kat_Aclysm

Rated : - T for language.

 **DISCLAIMER:** I still don't own any of these characters. Dis right here be fanfiction broh. Rick and Morty is an Adult Swim animated comedy. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. Please consider supporting the official content.

 **NOTE:** The final chapter! Whew, finally finished. Expect more of these - this was an absolute joy to write.

* * *

 **Chapter 9 – What Now? Everything.**

"Hey, buddy? Wake up." Rick's voice was getting louder now as he shook his grandson. He had since driven the car into the garage after the first attempt to wake Morty up. He was now shaking him much harder this time, actually concerned that he was being so difficult to rouse.

 _"He must have been really tired to sleep that heavily..."_

Rick began to slap Morty's cheeks with his hands."Come on, buddy, you can do better than this. W-wake up for me." He shook him yet again.

Morty finally cracked his eyelids open on the third round of shaking, his mind was still very much asleep. He made a soft groaning sound and closed his eyes again, wanting to roll over and sleep for at least a few more hours.

"Hey, g-get up." Rick sighed in relief. " You're home. Go to bed, Morty."

"Dad?"

Rick promptly turned around, raising his brows as he saw Beth in the garage doorway. She had obviously been asleep, because she was wearing pyjamas and her hair was in disarray. The old man tensed up at the sight of her, having not expected to see her so soon. He attempted to feign a happy-sounding voice, hoping it would keep her calm.

"Oh hi there, sweetie. W-what are you doing up?"

"I heard the garage door open. Your ship isn't particularly quiet either." She continued to stand in the doorway. "Can I come in? Is everything OK in here?"

"Yeah, it's fine." Rick kept up the sickly-sweet voice. "Morty's just... umm... a-aaaall tired out from the trip baaURRRRRGGck."

"How was it? Did you guys have fun?" Beth smiled as she stepped into the garage and stood near the ship, smiling as she saw Morty curled up in the passenger's seat. "Wow, you guys must have had a great time. He seems really exhausted."

Rick folded his arms and nodded, keeping up the friendly act was getting harder. "Yeah... we're pooped. Showed him h-how to build a fire. Th-then we camped out in the... t-the mountains. Yep." He bit his lip – he was truly pulling the story out of his ass now, and he began to wish he had put more thought into it. "We made smores hiked for a couple of days – that kid's a r-real troo-URRRPPPper."

"Aww, dad..." Beth reached out to rub Rick's shoulder. "Well, I'm going back to bed. Morty had better go too, he has school tomorrow morning. The teachers have been asking where he's been."

"M-mmight not be a good idea to send him tomorrow, he's still going to be tired. Different timezones, you know. Don't worry sweetie, I'll take him to bed." Rick's tone was rather hasty as he spoke - he didn't want his daughter to dig for further details and he certainly didn't want to weave a more elaborate lie than needed. "Go back to bed yourself, I got this one."

Beth nodded. "Goodnight, dad. Thanks for taking care of him so well." She smiled as she shut the door behind her.

Rick swung around on his heels the moment he heard the door close, glaring hard at the sleeping teenager now. "W-wake up, you little piece of shit." He hissed and slammed his hands on Morty's shoulders, shaking him like a rag-doll.

Morty finally woke with a start – he had somehow managed to drift off to sleep again in the short moments that Rick had been talking to Beth. "S-sstop it, Rick! I'm awake, I'm awake!" He clambered out of the spaceship and wiped the drool off his face as he stood up again. "Geez..." His head leaned forward and he yawned, resisting the desire to fall asleep while standing there.

"W-why don't you go to bed, buddy?" Rick snatched up the envelope from the hospital out of his pocket and tore it open. "I'll meet you there in a few minutes."

Morty nodded and stumbled out the door, his gait clumsy and zombie-like.

Rick's mind was racing as the kid left – he had already begun wondering if the Morty's medication was overdue and if the sleepiness was a symptom of it. His eyes quickly skimmed through the alien scribble on the pages in his hands and he was frustrated because he could barely understand any of it. With an exasperated sigh he moved across the room to sit down at his chair, emptying out his pockets onto the table before him.

"D-damn it. I should have paid more attention to the ones they kept giving him." He picked up one of the green hexagonal ampules and eyed the contents carefully – it flowed inside the clear glass container like honey, thick and syrupy. He shrugged and set it aside, ripping open one of the syringe packets so he could get to work.

Meanwhile, Morty stumbled up the hallway, taking a quick detour to the restroom. After that was taken care of he headed into his room and practically collapsed onto the bed. He pulled the covers over himself, so tired that he hadn't even bothered to take his shoes off. He was asleep again in less than a minute.

"O-OK Morty, I think I got it now." Rick suddenly swung the door open with his left hand, holding a syringe in the other. He didn't bother to turn the light on and stared at the lump under the mess of bed covers, though he wasn't really surprised that the kid hadn't woken up again. "Y-yeah yeah, good idea buddy... stay down."

Rick was silent as he stood over the other while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He prepared the syringe by holding it upright, taking a moment to tap the residual air bubbles to the top.

The old man narrowed his eyes in concentration as he depressed the plunger just enough to force the remaining air out and the syrupy liquid inside began to bead at the tip of the hypodermic needle. Once he decided it was properly prepared, he reached down to flick the covers back just far enough that he could roll up the sleeve of Morty's shirt.

"Stay still, buddy. T-this might hurt." Rick's voice was quiet as he stabbed Morty in the bicep muscle, injecting the contents of the syringe in as quickly as he could. As he removed the needle again, he stuck his finger over the puncture wound to stop the bleeding.

Morty didn't even make a sound. He simply scratched at his arm and batted Rick's hand away in his sleep.

"There's gotta be an easier way to do that next time." Rick muttered aloud to himself as he stepped back from the bed and recapped the needle. "Goodnight, buddy. I know you p-probably can't hear me, but... meet me in the garage when you wake up, OK?"

The old man slipped out quietly and retreated to his own room, shutting the door behind him. He tossed the needle into the trash and sank down onto the cot, staring up at the ceiling. His mind was racing with all kinds of thoughts about how to handle the next couple of weeks, and how to handle what was to come next. He took out his flask and began to sip from it until he was drunk enough to finally fall asleep.

The next day, Beth didn't bother to get Morty up for school. She figured he was still tired out from 'camping' and had let him sleep in. He was still out of it by the time she had left for work. By the time Morty did finally wake up again, it was well past midday.

The teenager stumbled out of bed and looked around the house to see who was still home, soon finding nobody. His dad was out somewhere (probably playing golf) and his sister was obviously at school. Morty smirked at this fact as he headed into the bathroom to take a shower - he always liked it when the rest of his family was out because it meant that the house was going to be quiet. It was a nice break from all the screaming that happened all too frequently.

After he had dried off and dressed himself again, he made a bowl of cereal and took it with him as he headed out towards the garage, finding it strange that the door was open – that wasn't normal. As Morty stood in the doorway, he immediately took note of the fact that Rick seemed incredibly focused and in the middle of something – there was a microscope in front of him and he was on the edge of his seat, busy looking at whatever he had placed under the microscope lens. There were glass slides scattered around the microscope on the workbench, each one prepared meticulously and ready for examination. Machine boxes were haphazardly scattered all over the floor near Rick's chair and some of them Morty immediately recognized from the hospital – some of the boxes had already been opened and stripped down for the components inside.

Though the thing that got him wondering the most was the fact that there was a rather large space that had been cleared on the workbench – that wasn't normal either, the garage was usually cluttered with all manner of odd objects. At least the floor was still a mess, that was perfectly normal.

"Ummm..." Morty spoke softly as he broke the silence, not wanting to startle his grandfather. He took a couple of cautious steps into the garage and stuffed a couple spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth.

Rick momentarily glanced back at Morty before returning to his microscope. "Glad to see you're finally awake. I know you're there, come on in. I-If you want." He raised a hand, motioning somewhere behind him with casual wave. "While you're back there, hand me the box of dyes from that shelf, huh? I'm almost finished hereUUURRRRRRPPP."

"Wh-what's going on, Rick?" Morty looked around the shelf as he quickly finished the bowl of cereal, absentmindedly placing it onto the floor beside him. Once he located the box of dyes, he picked it up and placed it on the bench beside Rick, being careful not to bump any of the slides. "What is all this stuff?"

"Well, Morty, r-remember that shit we picked up from the hospital?" Rick motioned to the slides on the workbench. He picked up one of the dye bottles and momentarily shook it up before carefully applying a small amount of liquid to one of the slides closest to him. "I'm looking at it now - most of this stuff can just be r-rr-replicated with crap we have here on Earth. The painkillers are nothing more than opiates w-with a psycho-URRRRRGGGactive component – p-pretty lame if you ask me."

Rick picked up the slide that had been on the microscope and tossed it over his shoulder, not seeming to care in the slightest as it smashed on the ground behind him. He was quiet for several moments as he examined three more of the glass slides under the microscope. "Yeep..." He grumbled as he tossed the slides away. "This stuff can be found on Earth. I'll make a run to the drugstore later today, s-so you... d-don't have to worry about being stabbed with a needle again." He put the microscope aside and began cleaning up the workbench, throwing almost everything he'd been working on straight into the trash.

Morty nodded as he watched his grandfather, seeming rather relieved with the news. "Th-thanks, Rick." He pointed to the blank space on the workbench. "W-what are you doing over here?"

"Well, Morty..." Rick suddenly went quiet, his mouth twisting into an uncomfortable expression. He'd been preparing for this day in his mind for a considerably long time, and now that it was finally here, he wasn't entirely sure how to feel about it. When he saw Morty staring back at him expectantly, he placed his hands on the teenager's shoulders and gave him an encouraging nudge towards the empty workbench space. "N-not me. You."

"What...?" Morty blinked in disbelief, utterly confused. He had no idea what was going on – was Rick expecting him to do something? Was he asking him to help?

Rick ignored him and picked up one of the machine boxes off the floor that he had stolen from the hospital, dropping it onto the bench. "Y-you can come in here any time you want and work on stuff." He patted the machine for a moment before pulling the casing off. "This is yours now, buddy."

"It's mine?" Morty stared down at the inside of the box, confused. "W-wh-what... what am I supposed to do with it?"

Rick shrugged in reply. "A-anything you want to." He retrieved a desoldering pump from a storage crate under the bench, along with a screwdriver and a small heat-gun. He dropped them onto the bench beside the box and poked his grandson's shoulder. "O-off you go then."

Morty raised his eyebrows and just stared back at the other, dumbfounded. He was still utterly confused.

Rick let out a long hopeless sigh and crouched down, placing his hands on Morty's shoulders. "Morty. D-do you remember what I told you yesterday? A-about learning something practical? Well, you need somewhere to do that, s-so... I'm giving up some of my space for youURRRRRPP." He nudged him towards the blank workbench again, "I always mean what I say, so, here you go, buddy. I-i-it's yours."

Morty turned away, his attention on the bench. He was silent as the weight of Rick's statement and the reality of the situation before him began to sink in. He was utterly blown away by the fact that Rick, somebody who painted himself as an utterly selfish person to everyone, who frequently berated him and called him stupid, was giving up a piece of his own workspace to him, for the opportunity to learn.

Rick raised an eyebrow, not really knowing how take the lack of reply. "W-well? What do you think?"

Morty made a soft whimper in the back of his throat in response. He was excited, overjoyed, and incredibly scared all at the same time. He was terrified of failing and letting Rick down - too many emotions at once, suddenly bearing down on him. He made another pathetic weak sound and his mouth quivered as he began to cry.

"O-oh god, don't start up with that a-again." Rick gently shook Morty by the shoulders. "Come on buddy, don't cry. I-i-it's not that bad. This is a good thing, it'll be a big step for you. It'll be fun before too long, y-you'll see."

Morty made a pathetic sniffling sound as the tears began to flow freely. He lowered his head, staring at the floor. "Th-th-that... t-that's not the reason I'm..." He cut himself off with a sob and frantically wiped his eyes with his hands, but the tears wouldn't stop.

"Look buddy," Rick sighed, feeling sorry for the kid. "I know this is a lot to take in, but don't let it get to you. The learning curve is pprobably going to be a little overwhelming at first, s-so start out small." His brows furrowed as he noticed Morty was still staring at the floor, his expression turning serious. "L-look at me." He cupped a hand under Morty's chin and gently forcing his head back so they were facing each other once again. "C-come on, buddy, look at me."

Morty finally returned his gaze to Rick, though he was embarrassed with himself now. He felt utterly stupid for being so emotional. "I-i-i'm sorry, Rick..."

Rick sighed as he stood on his feet again. "You have n-nothing to be sorry for, stop that." He placed a hand on-top of Morty's head and ruffled his hair. "If it helps you any, it used to scare the shit out of me too. S-s-sometimes it still does – the universe is completely chaotic and random, it doesn't make any sense. That's why you need to learn, s-so it doesn't blindside you in the same way it did to me."

"Wh... what happened to you, Rick?" Morty blinked, his expression turning to curiosity. He sniffled again, though he had stopped crying for the mostpart.

"I'll tell you one day... wh-when you're older." Rick shrugged as he turned away to pull out his hip flask, taking a long swig from it.

"Whenever you're ready to." Morty nodded, though he had to admit he was very keen to hear about it. He wasn't about to push the other until he was ready to talk about it.

Rick's attention was on the shelf across the room now, and he stepped across the room to retrieve a large dusty old textbook from it. "If you need somewhere to start... I started out by pulling shit apart when I was a kid. I pr-probably wasn't much older than you." He moved back to the bench and dropped the book down on the empty workbench. "If you wanna know how things go together, y-you gotta pull them apart first. Find out how it works by deconstructing it. Once you work that out, y-you can put your own shit together."

He pushed the book towards Morty and opened it on a random page – there were diagrams regarding basic electronic components. "Nobody expects you to know everything when you start out, d-don't be afraid to fuck it up along the way either." He flipped a couple more pages, finally leaving the book open on a page about capacitors and resistors. "That's how we learn, Morty. We fuck up, w-we learn from it, and we start aga-UURRRRGGGin."

Morty stared down at the box. "W-where do I start? What do I do from here?"

"As I said before, buddy, whatever you want." Rick pushed his chair over so Morty could sit down. "Anything you want to. It's your space, do whatever you want with it. I-I'm not going to judge, so don't think you have to try and impress me or anything. You don't have to worry about that stuff." He picked up a gun he had been putting together several weeks ago and went back to his side of the workbench so he could resume working on it.

Morty sat down and his attention turned first towards the screwdriver, then the soldering gun, realizing that he didn't even know how to use it. "Can y-you show me how to use this stuff?"

"Yeah." Rick's reply calm. He didn't look up from what he was doing. "I-if you want. But don't think y-you have to do everything all at once. Why not read for a while? That book is pretty useful. B-better than the shit they give you at school."

Morty nodded silently and peered over the book, his attention turning back to the open machine box on the bench. He was already trying to match the pictures in the textbook to the circuit boards, attempting to locate and identify them. After several moments of silence, he reached in and began to pull on a resistor with his fingers, wiggling it to snap it off it's wire legs. He held the component in his fingers for a moment to examine it closely - it looked almost identical to the one on the open page in the book.

"S-so... what now?"

"Everything that comes after that."

Morty raised an eyebrow as he stared back at Rick. There was obviously a lot more to that answer than he knew, but he wasn't going to question it.

Over the next couple of hours, the two sat quietly, engrossed in what they were doing. Rick couldn't help himself as he subtly peered over his shoulder every so often to watch Morty work. The older man couldn't help but feel a small sense of pride as he watched his grandson – as the other slowly pulled the machine apart and pried out the components, it reminded him of himself. He knew Morty would fail in the future, would get frustrated, and would probably throw his failures onto the ground in a wild rage. He knew because he had done all those things himself in the past, and Morty was just like him – the kid had already showed great potential in the short time he'd been back in his life.

The kid deserved far more credit than anybody else had given him thus far. He would grow up, and if he was given the proper environment to learn in, Rick was sure he'd be doing great things one day - he knew the kid would thrive if only given the chance. Rick would be sure to give him that opportunity – he deserved it.

Rick couldn't help but smile at the thought as he went back to work. After another couple of moments silence, he felt a pair of arms wrap around his middle. He glanced downward – Morty was hugging onto him again.

"I love you so much, Rick..." Morty buried his face in his coat. "Thank you for believing in me..."

Rick sighed as he conceded, and moved his arms around Morty, returning the hug. "Y-yeah, buddy. I love you too." The two continued to hug for another couple of moments before Rick moved away - the gun wasn't going to finish itself any time soon. "Now shut up and get to work, y-you have science to do."

Morty gave Rick another squeezing hug and returned to his seat. He wasn't sure what was going to happen in the weeks, months or even years to come, but he would welcome whatever came their way. Rick had seen something in him and he wasn't about to question it. He would work hard, whatever the old man threw at him.

He wanted to do the old man proud. He was his Morty, and Rick was his.

It was meant to be.

* * *

The End


End file.
